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DUKE 
UNIVERSITY 





DIVINITY SCHOOL 
LIBRARY 








Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2022 with funding from 
Duke University Libraries 


https://archive.org/details/parablesofourlor01dods 


THE PARABLES OF 
OUR LORD 


BY 


MARCUS DODS, D.D. 


AUTHOR OF ‘‘ THE PRAYER THAT TEACHES US TO PRAY,” 
‘© AN INTRODUCTION TO THE NEW TESTAMENT,”’’ 
““ISRAEL’S IRON AGE,’’ ETC. 


NEW YORK 
THOMAS WHITTAKER 


2 AND 3 BIBLE HousE 





CONTENTS. 


To TEES SOWER 4 cin once ca nie wc alscleawin s wlocesaee 660 6eevee 7 
Matt. xiii. 1-9, 18-23 ; Luke vii 4-15. 
Ree ESTAS fete jelavelatarelopat al As ara, 0 aveseinie a’eloinvaialais lol Sica 520 
Matt. xiii. 24-30, 36-43. 


III. THE MUSTARD SEED....--eeseeeescereceeccerccses 45 


Matt. xiii. 31, 32. 


Ty Dine GLA ESSE Seok See Saigecessoec oodedoeenee ee: 


Matt. xiii. 33. 


Vv. THE HID TREASURE AND THE PEARL OF PRICE..... 81 


Matt. xiii. 44-46. 


WE. THE NET... cccncccucccescvccrcecceccaveseccscccess” OO 


Matt. xiii. 47-50. 


VII. THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT OR THE UNFORGIVING 
DERLGR SA e se cnt soe eee ates cess cisai< oa ELS 


Matt xviii. 23-35. 


VIII. LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. FIRST LAST AND 
MASTARIRST abiotic aeucisie vavstioeins oe sis Bece hey! 


Matt. xx. 1-16. 


4 9 G Pe2 


CHAPTER 
IX. THE TWO SONS......seccccccececscevecsssccesesces LSE 


XII. 


XIII. 


XV. 


XVI. 


XVII. 


XVIII. 


XIX. 


XX. 


THE 


THE 


CONTENTS. 


Matt. xxi. 28-32. 


WICKED HUSBANDMEN «.ee--seesesesssessseses 


Matt. xxi. 33-45. 


MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON....+.00 sesces 


Matt. xxi. 45—xxii. 14. 


THE TEN VIRGINS......- Pereeeeeeeee errr eee eee! 


THE 


THE 


THE 


THE 


THE 


THE 


THE 


THE 


Matt. xxv. 1-13. 


TALENTS...,....- ececee eee ee 


Matt. xxv. 14-30. 


TWO DEBTORS......-eee- stew ete eer eeesecenee 


Luke vii. 36-50. 


GOOD SAMARITAN.......- eee eee er 


Luke x. 25-37. 


RICH FOOL... .c. ee ceecvcccccccseseseseescsess 


Luke xii. 13-21. 


BARREN FIG-TREE......-2:cccscsccssesscasess 


Luke xiii. 6-9. 


GREAT SUPPER...... coe rccccccnccesescssesess 
Luke xiv. 16-24. 


LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST PIECE OF MONEY.. 


Luke xv. 1-10. 


PRODIGAL SON AND HIS ELDER BROTHER..... 


Luke xy. 11-32. 


PAGE 


169 


186 


203 


222 


241 


257 


275 


292 


310 


328 


345 


. CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER PAGE 
XXI. THE UNJUST STEWARD.......--cccccccccccccccccees 362 


Luke xvi. 1-13. 


XXII, DIVES AND LAZARUS......... Seale eteleiata ata idetalatsiatatattn SOO 


Luke xvi. 19-31. 


XXIII. THE UNJUST JUDGE........2ceee er eccnnvccessceeses 400 


Luke xviii. 1-8, and xi. 5-13. 


XXIV. THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN.......2s0es0e0% 418 


Luke xviii. 9-14. 





-_ 





THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


THE SOWER. 
MatTY?. xiii. I-9, 18-23; LUKE vii. 4-15. 


This parable had to be spoken. It gave ex- 
pression to thoughts which burdened the mind of 
Jesus throughout His ministry. On the day He 
uttered it, he had left the house and was sitting 
by the sea-side, “and there were gathered unto 
Him great multitudes.” He had no difficulty in 
finding an audience. It is one of the greatest 
pleasures to listen to a good speaker. It is a 
pleasure which attracts young and old, rich and 
poor, educated and uneducated. A good speaker 
is always sure of an audience, and especially where 
he has not to encounter the rivalry of books. 
But as Jesus watched the crowd assembling, and 
perceived the various dispositions with which the 
people came, He could not but reflect how much 
of what He had to say must certainly be lost on 
many. He knew He had that to tell men which, 
if received, would change the face of society, and 

7 


) ' THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


turn the wilderness into a.garden. He was con-- 
scious of that in His own mind which, could it 
only be conveyed into the minds of those press- 
ing around Him, would cause their lives to flour- 
ish with righteousness, beauty, love, usefulness, 
and joy. He had “many things tosay ” to them, 
things that never yet had fallen and never again 
could fall from human lips; and yet who, of the 
thousands that listened, would believe? They 
came, some out of curiosity, some saying within 
themselves, ‘What will this sower of words 
say ?’’ some out of hatred, seeking occasion against 
Him; but allthinking themselves entitled to hold 
and express an opinion regarding the importance 
or worthlessness of what He said. They needed 
to have their critical faculty exercised upon them- 
selves, and to be reminded that in order to bene- 
fit by what He had to say, they must bring cer- 
tain capacities. 

The parabolic form of teaching is pleasant to 
listen to ; it is easily retained in the memory; it 
stimulates thought, each man being left to find 
an interpretation for himself; and it avoids the 
offensiveness of direct rebuke. To the crowd 
Jesus speaks only of the sower in the fields, and 
makes no explicit reference to Himself or to 
them. 

The object of this parable, then, is to explain 
the causes of the failure and success of the gos- 
pel. Apart from experience, it might have been 


THE SOWER. 9 


supposed that our Lord had only to proclaim His 
kingdom in order to gather all men to His stand- 
ard. If it were so that God desired all men to 
enter into everlasting joy, did not this remove 
every difficulty, and secure the happiness of all? 
Could such a messenger and sucha message fail to 
move every one who came in contact with them ? 
Alas! even after so many centuries Christianity 
is not the one only religion men believe in; and 
even where it is professed, it is most inade- 
quately understood and received. Why, then, isit 
so? why, to so lamentable an extent does every 
agency for the extension of Christ’s kingdom 
fail? It fails, says our Lord, not because the 
claims of the kingdom are doubtful, not because 
they are inappropriately urged—these causes 
may no doubt sometimes operate—but the king- 
dom fails to extend because the fructification of 
the seed of the word depends upon the nature of 
the soil it falls upon, and because that soil is often 
impervious, often shallow, often dirty. The seed 
is not in fault, the sowing is not in fault, but the 
soil is faulty—a statement of the case as little ac- 
cepted by those in our own day who discuss 
Christ’s claims, as it was by our Lord’s contem- 
poraries. 

1. The first faultiness of soil our Lord speci- 
fies in the words, “ Some seeds fell by the way- 
side, and the fowls came and devoured them 
up ;” and the interpretation or spiritual analogue 


10 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. ¥ 

He gives in the words, “ When any one heareth 
the word of the kingdom and understandeth it not, 
then cometh the wicked one and catcheth away 
that which was sown in his heart.” The beaten 
footpath that crosses the corn-field, and that is 
maintained year after year, or the cart-track 
along the side of the field, may serve a very use- 
ful purpose, but certainly it will grow no corn. 
The hard surface does not admit the seed: you 
might as well scatter seed on a wooden table, or 
a pavement, ora mirror. The seed may be of the 
finest quality, but for all the purposes of sowing 
you might as well sprinkle pebbles or shot. It 
lies on the surface. This state of matters then 
represents that hearing of the word which man- 
ages to keep the word entirely outside. The 
word has been heard, but that is all. It has not 


.even entered the understanding. It has been 


heard as men listen to what is said in a foreign 
language. The mind is not interested; it is 
roused to no inquiry, provoked to no contradic- 
tion. You have sometimes occasion to suggest a 
different course of action to a friend; and, in 
order to do so, you mention a fact which should 
be sufficient to alter his purpose, but you find he 
has not apprehended its significance, has not seen 
its bearing—it has not fructified in his mind as 
you expected, and you say to yourself; “He 
does not take it in.” So says our Lord: there 
are hearers who do not take in what is said; they 


THE SOWER. II 


do not see the bearings of the word they hear ; 
their understanding is impervious, impenetrable. 

Are there such hearers? Surely there are. 
There are persons on whom the seed of the word 
falls as by accident, and who have neither pre- 
pared themselves to hear it, nor make any effort 
to retain it. They aremembers of a church-going 
family, or they have formed a church-going habit 
of their own; they have perhaps their reason for 
being found side by side with those who hear 
with profit, but they do not come for the sake of 
hearing; they are not anxious to hear, thoughtful 
about what they hear, careful to retainit. There 
are careless persons who hear the word not as the 
result of a decision that it zs to be heard; not as 
they would, on beginning the study of chemistry 
or of philosophy, seek out certain teachers and 
certain books; but as the hearing of the word 
happens to be the employment of the hour, they 
submit to this social convention, and they allow 
the seed of the kingdom to fall upon them with 
no more expectation than that with which they 
hear the passing salutation of a friend on the 
street, knowing that whether he says it is a fine 
day or not, it is equally without significance. This 
hearing of the word has come to be one of the 
many employments with which men fill up their 
time, and this hearer has never thought why, nor 
whether it does him any good or no. He has 
never considered why he personally should listen 


12 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. — 
to this special kind of word, nor what he person- 
ally may expect as the result of it. 

There are, in short, persons who, either from 
preoccupation with other thoughts and hopes, 
have their minds beaten hard and rendered quite 
impervious to thoughts of Christ’s kingdom, or 
from a natural slowness and hard frostiness of 
nature, hear the word without admitting it even 
to work in their understanding. They do not 
ponder what is heard, they do not check the | 
statements they hear by their own thought; they 
do not consider the bearings of the gospel on them- | 
selves. When you propose toa farmer who is 
paying too high a rent to go to some part of the 
country where rents are lower, the idea will prob- 
ably find entrance into his understanding. He 
may not ultimately adopt it, but it will stir a great 
many hopes and thoughts of various kinds in him, 
and he will find his mind dwelling on it day after 
day, and hour by hour, so that he can speak of little 
else. But the proposals made to the wayside 
hearer suggest nothing at allto him. His mind 
throws off Christ’s offers as a slated roof throws 
off hail. You might as well expect seed to grow 
on a tightly-braced drum-head as the word to 
profit such a hearer; it dances on the hard sur- 
face, and the slightest motion shakes it off. 

The consequence is, it is forgotten. When 
seed is scattered on a hard surface it is not allowed 
to lie long. The birds devour it up. Every 


THE SOWER. 13 


hedge, every tree, every roof contributes its eager 
few, and shortly not a corn remains. So when 
not even the mind has been interested in Christ’s 
word, that word is quickly forgotten ; the conver- 
_ sation on the way home from church, the thought 
of to-morrow’s occupations, the sight of some one 
on the street—anything, is enough to take it clean 
away. Insome persons the word is admitted 
though it does not at once bring forth fruit. As 
in the old fable the words spoken unheard in the 
Arctic circle were thawed into sound and became 
audible in warmer latitudes; so when a man 
passes into new circumstances and a state of life 
more congenial to the development of Christian 
discipleship, the word which has apparently been 
lost for years begins to stir and make itself heard 
in his soul. But it cannot beso with the wayside 
hearer, for in him the word has never found any 
manner of lodgment. 

2. The second faultiness of soil our Lord enu- 
merates is shallowness. What we commonly 
understand by “ stony ground ”’ is a field thickly 
strewn with small stones; not the best kind of 
soil, but quite available for growing corn. This 
is not the soil meant here. Our Lord speaks 
rather of rocky ground, where a thin surface of 
mold overlies an impenetrable rock. There is 
a mere dusting of soil on the surface; if you put 
a stick or aspade into it, you come upon the rock 
a few inches below. On such ground the seed 


14 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


quickly springs, there being no deepness of earth 
to allow of its spending time in rooting itself. And 
for the same reason it quickly withers when ex- 
posed to the fierce heats which benefit and mature 
strongly-rooted plants. Precocity and rapid 
growth are everywhere the forerunners of rapid 
decay. The oak that is to standathousand years 
does not shoot up like the hop or the creeper. 
Man whose age is seventy years has a slowly 
growing infancy and youth, while the insect grows 
up in a day and dies at night or at the week’s end. 

The shallow hearer our Lord distinguishes by 
two characteristics ; he straightway receives the 
- word, and he receives it with joy. The man of 
deeper character receives the word with deliber- 
ation, as one who has many things to take into 
account and toweigh. He receives it with seri- 
ousness, and reverence, and trembling, foreseeing 
the trials he will be subjected to, and he cannot 
show alight-minded joy. The superficial character 
responds quickly because there is no depth of inner 
life. Difficulties which deter men of greater depth 
do not stagger the superficial. While other men are 
engaged in giving the word entrance into all the 
secret places of their life, and are confronting it 
with their most cherished feelings and ways, that . 
they may clearly see the extent of the changes it 
will work: while they are pondering it in the 
majesty of its hope and the vastness of its reve- 
lation; while they are striving to forecast all its 


THE SOWER. 15, 


results in them and upon them; while they are 
hesitating because they are in earnest, and would 
receive the word for eternity or not at all, and 
would give it entrance to the whole of their being, 
or exclude it altogether,—while others are doing 
this, the superficial man has settled the whole 
matter out of hand, and he who yesterday was a 
known scoffer is to-day a loud-voiced child of the 
kingdom. 

These men may often be mistaken for the most 
earnest Christians: indeed they are almost certain- 
ly taken to be the most earnest ; you cannot see 
the root, and what is seen is shown in greatest 
luxuriance by the superficial. The earnest man 
has much of his energy to spend beneath the soil, 
he cannot show anything till he is sure of the 
root. He is often working away at the founda- 
tion while another is at the copestone. But the 
test comes. The very influences which exercise 
and mature the well-rooted character, wither the 
superficially rooted. The same shallowness of 
nature which made them susceptible to the gos- 
pel and quickly responsive, makes them susceptible 
to pain, suffering, hardship, and easily defeated, 
Itis so inall departments of life. The superficial 
are taken with every new thing. The boy is de- 
lighted with a new study or anew game, but be- 
comes proficient in neither. The youth is charmed 
with volunteering, but one season of early rising 
is more than he can stand: or he is fascinated 


16 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


with the idea that history is an extremely profit- 
able kind of reading; but you know quite well 
when he asks for the loan of the first volume of 
Gibbon or Grote, that he will never come to you 
for the last. The action of the shallow man is in 
every case hasty, not based on a carefully consid- 
ered and resolutely accepted plan: he is charmed 
with the first appearances, and does not look into 
the matter, and forecast results and consequences. 
Accordingly, when consequences have to be faced, 
he is not prepared and gives way. 

But how, then, can the shallow man be saved ? 
Is there no provision in the gospel for those who 
are born witha thin, poor nature? This question 
scarcely falls to be answered here, because the 
parable presents one truth regarding shallow 
natures, which is verified in thousands of in- 
stances. Men do thus deal with the word, andthus 
make shipwreck of faith, and that is all we have 
here to do with. But passing beyond the par- 
able, it may be right to say that a man’s nature 
may be deepened by the events, and relationships, 
and conflicts of life. Indeed, that much deepen- 
ing of character is constantly effected, you may 
gather from the fact that while many young per- 
sons are shallow, the old persons whom you 
would characterize as shallow are comparatively — 
few. 

3. The third faultiness of soil which causes 
failure in the crop is what is technically known as 


THE SOWER. 17 


dirt. The soil is not impenetrable, nor is it shal- 
low; it is deep, good land, but it has not been 
cleaned — there is seed init already. Sometimes 
you see a field of wheat brilliantly colored 
throughout with poppies ; ora field of oats which it 
is difficult to cut on account of the dense growth 
of thistles, and of rank grass. But the soil can 
only feed a certain amount of vegetation, and 
every living weed meansa choked blade of corn. 
This is a worse case than the others. No crop 
can be looked for on a beaten road, not much 
can be expected from a mere peppering of soil 
upon rock; but here there is rich, deep, loamy 
mould, that must be growing something, and 
would, if cared for, yield a magnificent harvest, 
and yet there is little or nothing but thorns. 

This is a picture of the preoccupied heart of 
the rich, vigorous nature, capable of understand- 
ing, appreciating, and making much of the word 
of the kingdom, but occupied withso many other 
interests, that only a small part of its energy 
is available for giving effect to Christ’s ideas. 
These ideas are not excluded from the thoughts, 
they are welcomed; the mind is full of intel- 
ligent interest in Christian truth, and the heart 
has a real and profound sympathy with the work 
of Christ in the world and with His spirit, 
and yet, after all, little practical good proceeds 
from the man—Christian principle does not come 


to much in his case—the life shows little result 
2 


18 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


of a specially Christian kind. The reason is . 
that the man is occupied with a multitude of 
other views, and projects, and cares, and desires, 
and the peculiarly Christian seed does not get 
fair play. It influences him, but it is hindered 
and mixed up with so many other influences 
that the result is scarcely discernible. The 
peculiarity of a good field of wheat is not 
the density of the vegetation, but that the vege- 
tation is all of one kind, isall wheat. Leave the 
field to itself, you will in a short time have quite 
as dense a vegetation, but it will be of a multifari- 
ous kind. That the field bears wheat only, is the 
result of cultivation—not merely of sowing wheat, 
but of preventing anything else from being sown. 
The first care of the diligent farmer is to clean 
his land. 

And as there is generally some one kind of weed 
to which the soil is congenial, and against which 
the farmer has to wage a continual war, so our 
Lord here specifies as specially dangerous to us 
“the care of this world and the deceitfulness of 
riches.” The care of this world has been called 
the poor man’s species of the deceitfulness of 
riches, and the deceitfulness of riches a variety of 
the care of this world. There are poor men 
who have no anxiety, and rich men who are 
not misled by their riches either into depend- 
ence on their wealth, or desire to make it more. 
But among rich men and poor men alike you will 


THE SOWER. 19 


find some or many who would be left without any 
subject of thought, and any guiding principle in 
action, if you took from them anxiety about their 
own position in life. It is this from which all the 
fruit they bear springs. Take the actions of a 
year, the annual outcome or harvest of the man, 
and how much of what he has produced you can 
trace to this seed—to a mere anxiety about in- 
come and position. This is really the seed, this 
is all that is required to account for a large part of 
many men’s actions. 

Our Lord therefore warns us that if the word is 
to do its work in us, and produce all the good it is 
meant to produce, it must have the field to itself. 
It will not do merely to give attention to the word 
while it is preached: the mind may be clean on 
the surface, while there remain great knots of 
roots below, which will inevitably spring up, and 
by their more inveterate growth choke the word. 
This is the mistake of many. It is proper, they 
know, to hear the word—proper to give it fair 
play. They do make an effort to banish worldly 
and anxious thoughts, and to give their attention 
to divine things, but even though they succeed in 
putting aside for the time distracting thoughts, 
what of that if they have not the care of the world 
up by the roots? Cutting down won’t do: still 
less, a mere holding aside of the thorns till the seed 
be sown. What chance has the seed in a heart 
from which these eager thoughts and hopes are 


20 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


merely held back for the hour? The cares of the 
world will just swing over again and meet above 
the good seed, and shut out the day and every 
maturing influence. You receive to-day good im- 
pressions, you give the good seed entrance, and it 
begins to spring in you, it prompts you to a 
reasonable generosity and self-denial. To-morrow 
morning the tender blade of a desire to purify and 
prepare your spirit by some real and devout con- 
verse with God has sprung up in you, but the 
habitual craving to be at your work and lose no 
moment from business crushes and chokes the 
little blade, and it can no more lift its head. Or 
the seed has produced even the green ear of a 
growing habit of living under God’s eye, of walk- 
ing with God and bringing all your transactions 
before His judgment,—mature fruit seems on the 
point of being produced by you, when suddenly 
the promise of a rich harvest is choked by the 
old coarse thorn of a fondness for rapid profits, 
which leads you to ambiguous language, and res- 
ervations, and unfair dealings, such as you feel 
separate you from God, and dash your spiritual 
ardor, and make you feel like a fool and a knave 
both, when you speak of your citizenship being in 
heaven. Itis vain, then, to hope for the only 
right harvest of a human life if your heart is sown 
with worldly ambitions, a greedy hasting to be rich, 
an undue love of comfort, a true earthliness of 
spirit. One seed only must be sown ir and, you 


THE SOWER. 21 


it will produce all needed diligence in business, as 
well as all fervor of spirit. 

These, then, are the three faulty aks to which 
our Lord chiefly ascribes the failure of the sow- 
ing. The question arises, Does the result follow 
in the moral sowing and in the world of men as 
uniformly and inevitably as it followsin the sow- 
ing of corn in nature? In nature some soils are 
irreclaimable, vast tracts of the earth’s surface are 
as useless as the sea for the purposes of growing 
grain. They may indirectly contribute to the 
fruitfulness of corn lands by influencing the cli- 
mate, but no one thinks of cultivating these tracts 
themselves, of sowing the sands of Sahara or the 
ice-fields of Siberia. But the gospel is to be 
preached to every creature, because in man there 
is one important distinction from material nature ; 
he is possessed of free will, of the power of check- 
ing to some extent natural tendencies, and pre- 
venting natural consequences. Accordingly, we 
cannot just accept the bare teaching of the parable 
as the whole truth regarding the operation of the 
gospel in man’s heart, but only as one part of the 
truth, and that a most important part. The par- 
able enters into no consideration nor explanation 
of how men arrive at the spiritual conditions here 
enumerated ; but, given those conditions—and 
they are certainly common however arrived at— 
given those conditions, the result is failure of the 


gospel, 


22 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


In contrast, then, to these three faults of im- 
penetrability, shallowness, and dirt, we may be 
expected to do something towards bringing to 
the hearing of the word a soft, deep, clean soil of 
heart, or, as Luke calls it, “an honest and good 
heart.” There are differences in the crop even 
among those who bring good hearts; one bears 
thirty-fold, one sixty, one anhundred-fold. One 
man has natural advantages, opportunities of 
position, and so forth, which make his yield 
greater. One man may have had a larger propor- 
tion of seed; in his early days and all through his 
life he may have been in contact with the word, 
and in favoring circumstances. But wherever the 
word is received, and held fast, and patiently 
cared for, there the life will produce all that God 
cares to have from it. 

Honesty is a prime requisite in hearing the 
word, andarare one. Men listen honestly to a 
lecture on science or history, from which they ex- 
pect information; but where conduct is aimed at, 
or a vote is concerned, men commonly listen with 
minds already made up. It is notorious that 
men vote as they meant to vote, no matter what 
is said. Ifa Liberal were found voting with Con- 
servatives on any important point, some mistake 
would be supposed. The last thing thought of 
would be that his convictions had been altered by 
the speaking. But if we are to hear the word as 
we ought, we must bring an honest heart, we must 


a 


THE SOWER. 23 


not listen with a mind already made up against 
the gospel, with no intention whatever of being 
persuaded, cherishing purposes and habits, along- 
side of which it is impossible the word should 
grow. On the contrary, we should consider that 
this is the seed proper to the human heart, and 
which can alone produce what human life should 
produce—the word of God, which we must listen 
to gratefully, humbly, sincerely, greedily, and 
with the firm purpose of giving it unlimited scope 
within us. But where is the attentive, pains- 
taking scrutiny of the heart which this demands? 
Where is the careful husbandry of our souls, 
which would secure a kindly reception for the 
word? Where is the jealous challenging of every 
sentiment, habit, influence, association, that begs 
for a lodging within us? For where this is, and 
not elsewhere, we may expect the fruit of the 
kingdom. 

But even this is not enough. The fruitful 
hearer must not only bring an honest and good 
heart, he must keep the word. The farmer’s work 
is not finished when he has prepared the soil and 
sown the seed. If pains be not taken after the 
sowing, the seed that has fallen on good soil may 
be taken away as utterly as that which has fallen 
on the beaten path. The birds scatter over the 
whole field. We must therefore set a watcher; 
we must send the harrow over to cover in the 
seed, and the roller to give the plant a better hold 


24 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


on the soil. The word must not be allowed to 
take its chance, once it has been heard. Mere 
hearing does not secure fruit ; it goes for nothing. 
Your labor is lost unless your mind goes back 
upon what you hear, and you see that it gets 
hold of you. All of us have already heard all 
that is necessary for life and godliness ; it remains 
that we make it our own, that it secure a living 
root and place in us and in our life. In order to 
this we must keep the truth ; we must bear it in 
mind, so that whatever else comes before the 
mind throws new light on it, and gives it a further 
hold upon us. We must not let the events of the 
world and the occurrences of our day thrust it 
from our minds, but must confront it with these, 
and test it by these, so that thus it may become 
more real to us, and have a vital influence. One 
truth received thus, brings forth more fruit than 
alltruth merely understood. It is not the amount 
of knowledge you have, but the use you put it to 
—it is not the number of good sayings you have 
heard and can repeat, that will profit you, but the 
place in your hearts you have given them, and 
the connection they have with the motives, and 
principles, and ruling ideas of your life. 

And, therefore, meditation has always been, 
and must always be, reckoned among the most 
indispensable means of grace. Since ever saints 
were, their saintliness has been in great part due 
to a habit of meditation. Without it, the other 


THE SOWER. 25 


means of grace remain helplessly outside of us. 
The word does not profit except the mind be 
actively appropriating God’s message and revolv- 
ing it. Prayer is but a deluding form, that means 
nothing, expects nothing, and receives nothing, 
if meditation has not provided its material. Un- 
_less a man think upon his life and try his ways, his 
confession can but remove the scum from the 
surface, leaving the heart burdened and polluted; 
for the graver sins do not float, but sink deep, 
and must be dragged for with patience and skill, 
if not descried through a very rare natural clear- 
ness and simplicity of character. It isin the still- 
ness and quiet of our hours of reflection, when 
the gusts of worldly engagements and desires 
have died down, that the seeds of grace are de- 
posited inoursouls. It is thenthat our thoughts 
are free to recognize reasons of humility and 
causes of thankfulness. It is then that the 
thought of God resumes its place in our souls, 
and that the unseen world reasserts its hold upon 
us. It is then only that the soul, taking a delib- 
erate survey of its own matters, can discover its 
position and necessities, can assert its claims and 
determine its future, can begin the knowledge of 
all things by knowing itself. So that, “ if there is 
a person, of whatever age, or class, or station, who 
will not be thoughtful, who will not seriously and 
honestly consider, there zs no doing him any good.” 
But there is probably no religious duty so dis- 


26 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


tasteful as meditation to persons whose habits are 
formed in a state of society like our own. We 
are, for the most part, infected by the hastiness 
and overdone activity of the business world. The 
rapidity and exactness of mechanical action rule 
and regulate all our personal movements. We 
are learning to value only what gives us speedily 
and uniformly achieved and easily appreciated | 
results. We are civilized so nearly to one com-— 
mon level, and are in possession of so many ad-— 
vantages which hitherto have beenthe monopoly 
of one class, that competition is keener than ever 
before; and all our time and energy are de- 
manded for the one purpose of holding our own 
in things secular. But the dissatisfaction with 
slow processes, and the desire to get a great deal 
through our hands, must be checked when we 
come tothe work of meditation. There are proc- 
esses in nature which you can’t hurry. You 
must let your milk stand, if you wish cream. 
And meditation is a process of mind whose nec- 
essary element is the absence of hurry. We 
must let the mind settle and discharge itself of 
all irritating distractions and fevering remem- 
brances or hopes; we must reduce it to an 
equable state, from which it can look out dispas- 
sionately upon things, and no longer see the one 
engrossing object, but all that concerns us in due 
proportion and real position. The soul must 
learn to turn a deaf ear to the importunate re- 


THE SOWER. 271 


quirements of the daily life, and turn leisurely 
and with an unpreoccupied mind to God. Were 
it only to keep the world at bay, and teach the 
things of it their subordinate place, these medita- 
tive pauses of the soul were of the richest use. 

A third and last requisite for the fructification 
of the seed is, according to Luke, patience. The 
husbandman does not expect to reap to-morrow 
what he sowed to-day. He does not incontinently 
plow up his field again, and sow another crop, 
if he does not at once see the ripe corn. He 
watches and waits, and through much that is dis- 
appointing and unpromising, nurses his plants to 
fruitfulness. We also must learn with patience 
to bring forth fruit; not despairing because we 
cannot at once doall we would ; not sinking under 
the hardships, sacrifices, failures, sorrows, through 
which we must win our growth to true fruit-bear- 
ing, but animating and cheering our spirits with 
the sure hope that the seed we have received is 
vital, and will enable us to produce at last the 
sound and ripe fruit our lives were meant to yield. 
We must have patience both to endure all the 
privations, all the schooling, all the trial of various 
kinds which may be needful to bring the seed of 
righteousness to maturity ; and also to go on zeal- 
ously yielding the perhaps despised fruits which 
are alone possible to us now, and striving always 
to strike our roots Geeper and deeper into the true 
life. 












THE TARES. 


MATT. xiii. 24-30, 36-43. 






In this parable Christ warns His servant: 
against expecting to see in this world that un 
mixedly good condition of society which will al 
length be brought about in the world to come 
The kingdom of heaven is to have universal sway 
it is to stand without rival and without mixture 
of evil, but the time is not yet. Those who are 
themselves within this kingdom must beware ol 
acting as if the final judgment were already passed, 

At all times those who believe in God have 
been perplexed by the fact that this world is so 
far from a condition of unmingled good. Is it 
not God’s world? He could not sow bad seed, 
Whence then the tares? Sometimes this has 
pressed very heavily on the faith of men. it 
seems so unaccountable a thing that the field o 
God should not produce an unexceptionable 
harvest. We believe that God created the worl 
and created it for a purpose, and originated what 
ever was needful for the accomplishment of thi 
purpose. Whatever has proceeded from Him ca 
have been only good. No degenerate or noxious: 


grain can have escaped His hand. And yet, loo 
28 





THE TARES. 29 


at the result. How difficult in some parts of the 
field to see any fruit of God’s sowing ; how mixed 
everywhere is the evidence that this is God’s field. 
Is it not the ill-cultivated patch of a careless pro- 
prietor, of the ill-conditioned, unworkable tract on 
which the wealthy owner has not wasted the labor 
which might better be expended elsewhere! Has 
God mistaken the capabilities of His field, or does 
He not care to develop them? or does He like 
this mingled crop? Does Henot sympathize with 
His servants when they grieve overthis sad waste? 
Has murder a horror only for us? does falsehood 
xcite no indignation but in us? are violence and 
ust, disease and wretchedness matters of indif- 
ference to God? What do we see in the world ? 
enturies of folly, passion, toil, and anguish ; 
countries desolated by the vices of their inhab- 
itants; diseases which the most skilful cannot 
alleviate, nor the most callous view without a 
hudder ; sorrow and sin more bitter, more cruel, 
more appalling than any disease. And this is the 
ot of God; here He delights to dwell. Onno 
field of all His possessions has He spent more. 
Well may we join with the servants and say, “Sir, 
didst not Thou sow good seed in Thy field? From 
hence then hath it tares?”’ 

But Christ comes and inaugurates a new order 
of things, and all evil will disappear from earth. 
Man’s natural condition is but the dark back- 
ground on which the saving grace of God may 




















30 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


display its brilliant effects. God Himself comes 
and dwells with men, rolling back the heavy 
darkness with the light of His presence and wis- 
dom, infusing His own life into all. Now willthe 
earth yield her increase. Alas! the failure of the 
harvest of God is in many respects even more 
conspicuous in the Church of Christ than in the 
non-Christian world. The very method adopted 
to redeem the failure of the original creation 
seems itself also to be in great part failure. We 
are perplexed when we find wild and useless veg- 
etation in the outlying wilderness, but when w 

enter the garden of God, and within that re4 
deemed enclosure still find weeds and disorder, 
our perplexity deepens into dismay. Yet the 
fact is that, with scarcely an exception, all the 
useless and pernicious plants found outside Chris- 
tendom are foundalso within. Where is there to 
be found a more passionate greed of gain, or a 
more self-indulgent luxury, or a more thorough- 
going worldliness than among the masses of the 
trading Christian races? The gambling, the un- 
scrupulous hasting to be rich, the cruel and 
heart-hardening selfishness that abound in our 
own society are only made more deceptive and 
dangerous by being crossed with plants of 
heavenly origin, and by disguising their true 
nature under the flowers of Christian utterances, 
occasional charities, seeming repentances, and in- 
effective purposing of better things. Lust andj 






—————or 


THE TARES. 31 


villainy, fraud, malice, cruelty,—these noxious 
plants flourish within as without the Christian 
pale. And it is within Christendom we must 
look, if we would see some of the worst species 
of human iniquity. One is ashamed to read the 
history of the Church. Beside the good corn 
whose full ear bends in humble maturity of serv- 
ice, the deadly plant of delusive self-righteous- 
ness rears its pretentious and empty head. Ig- 
-morance, fear, and self-seeking have imitated 
every Christian grace, till the whole ground is 
covered with an overgrowth that hides from the 
eye the healthy plants of Christ’s own sowing. 
Insincerity, superstition, obscurantism, intoler- 
ance, pious fraud, the prostitution of the highest 
interests of men to aims the most contemptible 
and vile, the disguising of a rotten character 
under a professed faith and hope of the most 
elevating and glorious kind,—these are the plants 
which flourish in the garden of God. All that is 
double, all that is mean, all that is craven, all that 
is shallow and earthly in human nature, seems to 
be stimulated by this cultivated soil. The field 
which was to be the nursery of free souls who, 
with eyes unscaled to see the true beauty of eter- 
nal goodness, should devote themselves with cour- 
age and generosity to the common good, has be- 
come a paddock in which the timorous seek ref 
uge from a future they dread, and in which every 
low desire thinks it may burrow with impunity. 


32 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Looking at Christendom as it actually is, we 
may well ask, Is this what Christ sowed? Is 
this what He has produced on earth? Is this the 
kind of Christendom He intended? “Sir, did’st 
not Thou sow good seed in Thy field? From 
whence then hath it tares?” 

The explanation of this disappointing state of 
matters is given in the words, “ An enemy hath 
done this.” It is not the result of Christianity, 
but of agencies opposed to Christianity. Tosow 
a neighbor’s field with noxious seed is in some 
countries acommon device for venting spite or 
wreaking vengeance; and a more villainous in- 
jury can scarcely be imagined. It blasts hope; 
it isa long grievance, daily meeting the eye and 
wearing out the spirit till the harvest; it spoils 
the crop and injures the soil. It seems to say 
that all this time, from day to day, I have an 
enemy who hates me, so that there can be no 
truer joy to himthan that which gives me sorrow. 
He cannot be happy if Iam. My happiness is 
his misery ; my misery his greatest happiness. 
This is his spirit, the spirit of the Evil One, by — 
whomsoever shown; a spirit not wholly absent 
from our relations with other men, but betrayed 
even when we suppose ourselves to be animated 
with righteous indignation or warrantable re- 
venge. 

There is something characteristically devilish 
too, in the deed being done ‘when men slept ;” 





THE TARES. 33 


when the sun has gone down and the wrath of 
man begins to quiet and cool ; when men of right 
mind are resolving not to act in heat, or be pro- 
voked to unworthy and low-toned iniquities, but 
to think over their matters; when they are 
perhaps dreaming that they are once again 
boys together, and walking folded in one an- 
other’s arms; when the stillness and solemn 
grandeur of night rebuke the loud clamor and 
petty wranglings of men; when, at least, a pause 
is given to sin, this spirit’s malignity tires not, 
but like the beasts of prey is roused to a livelier 
activity, and recognizes the darkness and quiet as 
his peculiar season. In him there is no folding 
of his hands from evil, no wearying, no hesitation 
in his course, no questioning whether, after all, 
this is not too bad, no desire to mingle with it a 
little good, no desire of rest or forgetfulness, but 
the grateful memory of past wickedness inciting 
him to new iniquities. 

Such being the state of the field, and such its 
cause, what are the servants todo? ‘“ Wilt Thou 
that we go and gather out these tares?” Men 
are ever for prompt measures. “ Lord, wilt Thou 
that we command fire to come down from heaven 
and consume them?” Few understand the spar- 
ing of profligate cities for the sake of ten righteous 
men. We inwardly grudge that there should be 
so little difference now manifested between God’s 
treatment of the righteous and the wicked; and 

3 


34 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


that it should only at intervals appear that the 
former are His peculiar possession. Did our 
feelings rule the world, we should allow very few | 
tares to appear. We cannot wait, but must an-— 
ticipate the harvest. Thisand that other effective 
propagator of falsehood, would it not be well if 
he were out of the way? Would not good men 
come to a quicker and more fruitful maturity, 
were they not continually damaged by the blight- 
ing influences of skeptical literature, worldly so- 
ciety, superficial religionists ? 

“Let both grow together until the harvest,” 
is the law of the Master. Again and again the 
Church has, in the face of this parable, taken 
upon her to root out infidels and heretics. The 
reasoning has been summary: We are Christ’s, 
these men are Satan’s, let us destroy them. All 
such attempts violently to hasten the consum- 
mation, and to make the field of the world appear © 
uniform, have most disastrously hindered the 
growth of true religion. The servants have” 
wrought a more frightful desolation and barren-— 
ness in the field than anything which could have 
resulted from the existence of the tares. | 

It is, indeed, not always easy to know how far 
we should act upon the acknowledged fact of a | 
man’s ungodliness. In this country there is a 
strong feeling against opinions which are believed ~ 
to be dangerous ; perhaps it ne be said that the © 
animosity excited by a man’s profession of 


a oe 


THE TARES. 35 


atheism is more vehement and active than that 
which immorality excites. And though, happily, 
we do not now go so faras to remove such persons 
from the world, we do not scruple to visit them 
with serious social and civil disabilities. Now 
this parable emits the law regarding such persons. 
It does not say the world is as it ought to be; it 
does not say there is no distinction, or a very 
insignificant one, between good and bad men, or 
between Christians and atheists; but it enjoins 
upon t us the necessity of refraining from acting 
upon this distinction to the injury of any.. Pun- 
ishments must be inflicted by society on its in- 
jurious members, but not on the score of their 
ungodliness or unprofitableness in Christ’s king- 
dom. The distinction between a criminal and a 
benefactor of his country may not be so great as 
between a ripe Christian and a full-blown atheist ; 
but while we are compelled to act upon the 
former distinction, and pluck up the criminal 
from his place, and banish him from our society, 
the latter distinction is not fully manifested, and 
must not be fully acted upon in this world. The 
man who habitually swears, or leads a grossly 
immoral life, or propagates infidelity, may do a 
great deal more harm than the starving boy who 
steals a loaf; but we are called upon to punish 
the latter and not the former. And in so far as 
we damage the prospects, or asperse the good 
name, of any man because we consider him 


36 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


“tares,”” and not wheat, in so far we fly in the 
_face of this parable. 

The reasonableness of this method of de delay 
is sufficiently obvious. Within the Church itself 
it is often impossible even to be as sure as the 
servants of the parable were that there is darnel 
sown among the wheat, or at least to discriminate 
between the wheat and the darnel. An opinion, 
or a practise, which is at first sight condemned as 
scandalous or full of danger, may turn out to be 


sound and wholesome. Butif no time be allowed — 


lit to grow, if it be summarily pronounced tares, 


‘and thrown over the hedge, the good fruit it | 
might have borne is thrown away with it. Truth © 


may be in the minority—always is at first in the 
minority ; and if,as the servants view the field, 
they merely take a vote as to what is wholesome 
and what poisonous, they are likely enough to do 
evil rather than good. 

And even where it is certain that evil has 
sprung up in the Church, it is a further question 
whether it should be summarily removed. This 
parable, it is true, is not the guide for the action 
of the rulers of the Church towards its members ; 
but, indirectly, a warning against hasty action is 
given to those in authority. False doctrine may 
“sometimes be more easily got rid of, if it be re- 
garded in silence, or with a few words of convinc- 
ing exposure, than if it be signalized with assault. 


No man who had any regard for his field would | 


— 


ee 


THE TARES. 37 


arry a seeding thistle through every part of it, 
and give it a shake in every corner. 

But our Lord Himself in the parable assigns 
two reasons for this abstinence from immediate 
action. First, you are not to root up tares, be- 
cause you will inevitably root up good corn with 
them. It is almost impossible to pull up a single 
stalk of corn by the root ; you may break it off, 
but if you take up its root you are almost sure to 
bring away with it a number of other stalks and 
a mass of soil. The one root refuses to be 
detached from the rest—a striking representation 
of what happens when injury is inflicted on any 
member of society. You cannot injure one 
man and oneonly. In him you strike his chil- 
dren, his friends, his followers if he be a man 
of influence. No man is so forlorn that none 
will be made lonelier by his death, or be em- 
bittered or saddened by his misfortune. We 
live for the most part in little circles, bound one 
to the other by indissoluble relationships, nur- 
tured from one soil, and matured by common 
interests and feelings. And these circles are not 
separate from one another, but some member of 
your circle belongs also to another; and so the 
whole world is linked together, and you cannot 
put forth your hand and strike any man whose 
pain shall not be felt by others, nor thrust him 
from you without repelling all who are attached 
to him. And of those who are attached to him, 


38 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


are you sure there are none who belong to the 
kingdom, no little blade springing up by his root, 
which, did you let it grow, would abound in fruit ? 
For, that a man is evil himself, is no proof that 
all his connections are evil. On the contrary, an 
ungodly man will often cling to those who belong 
to the kingdom, as if somehow they must find 
entrance for him along with themselves. A father 
who cannot change his own ways nor yield the 
opinions of his youth, seeks to protect his chil- 
dren from the influences that destroyed himself, 
and to atone for his own barrenness by their pro- 
ductiveness. Some who are held as by a terrible 
fatality from winning the kingdom, will yet 
entreat others to use violence to enter it. Even 
the most profligate have commonly some one ripe 
and living soul devoted to them, who could wish 
that himself were accursed for their kinsmen 
according to the flesh. 

But this first reason rests upon the second: 
and that is, that the time is coming when the 
distinction between the wheat and the tares is 
to be acted upon. Only let a man accept the 
account here given of the end of the tares, and 
he will have very little desire to anticipate or 
hasten that end. When God says, ‘“ Vengeance 
is mine, I will repay,” we feel that the darkest 
injustice and wrong-doing will be adequately 
taken account of. When we reflect that what 
has roused our indignation has also been observed 


THE TARES. 39 


by God, and will be dealt with by Him, not only 
is our indignation mitigated, but, in view of the 
judgment of God, our pity is moved towards the 
transgressor. We were about to punish as if we 
were the offended party, as if we saw the matter 
in all its bearings and could justly judge it, and 
as if we had the right punishment at hand; but 
when this final judgment looms in sight we see 
how different are God’s judgments and God’s 
punishments from ours, and an awful pity pos- 
sesses us. Believe that the bar of God lies across 
the path of each of us, believe that a veritable 
sifting of men is to be, and that all men are to be 
allotted to suitable destinies, and compassion will 
extinguish every other feeling you may have 
cherished towards the wicked. The position in 
which we in this life are is full of awe, and fitted 
also to engender in us the tenderest feelings one 
towards another—growing up as we are side by 
side, but with destinies perhaps immeasurably 
wide asunder; here for a little united root to 
root, and yet, it may be, severed to all eternity. 
Could any position be better calculated to banish 
from our minds all indifference to one another’s 
prospects, all sullen and revengeful feelings, all va- 
riance and hatred, and to quicken within usa true 
affection and compassion, a considerate and help- 
ful tenderness ? 

The bearing of this parable, then, on ourselves 
cannot be mistaken. Wheat and darnel, it says, 


40 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


are almost identical in appearance, and are, in 
the meantime, treated as if the one was as 
valuable as the other; but let them grow, and 
the fruit will prove that the root principle of the 
one is different as possible from the other; the 
one is good food, the other poison. And they 
will eventually be treated accordingly. Every- 
thing must ultimately find its place according to 
its nature; not according to its appearance, nor 
according to any pretensions put forward in its 
behalf, but only and simply according to its own 
real character and quality. Each of us is growing 
to something, and from some root. No one 
may be able to say—perhaps you yourself are 
unable to say—to which kind and to what 
root you belong; perhaps you cannot confi- 
dently affirm what it is to which you are grow- 
ing, but beneath all appearances there is in you 
a real character, a root that determines what you 
shall grow to. As we grow up in society together, 
one man is in the main very like another. Of 
two of your friends, it may be the one who 
makes least profession of religion that you would 
go to in a difficulty in which much generous help 
and toil are needed. Take a regiment of soldiers 
or a ship’s crew, and you may find the ungodly 
as brave and self-sacrificing in action, as observ- 
ant of discipline as the others. There may be 
little to show that there is a radical difference in 
character; sometimes, of course, this difference 


THE TARES. 4l 


is very rapidly manifested, but in general there 
is so much similarity as to make it notorious that 
the Church is not distinctly marked off from the 
world. Society does resemble a field in which 
the wheat and the darnel are still in the blade, 
and can be discriminated only by a very careful 
observer. 

So that, first, this is apt to make the darnel 
think itself as good as the wheat. If we merely 
look at appearances we are apt to think that, 
take us all round, there is not much to choose 
between the wheat and us. We see in truly 
Christian people evil tempers, a revengeful, ty- 
fannical, ungenerous spirit, we detect bitterness 
and meanness in them, sometimes sensuality, 
and a keen eye for worldly advantage, and we are 
encouraged to believe that really we stand com- 
parison with them very favorably. So no doubt 
you do. The world would be insufferable if all 
men had the spirit which many Christians show. 
But that is not the point. The question is not 
whether you are not at present, to all appearance, 
as useful and pleasant a member of society as 
they; but the question is, whether there is not 
that in them which will grow to good, and 
whether there is not that in you which will grow 
to evil. Do you, that is to say, sufficiently con- 
sider this parable, which most frankly admits 
that at present, so far as things have yet grown, 
there may be no very marked difference between 


42 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


the children of the kingdom and others, but at 
the same time emphatically declares that the root 
is different, and that, therefore, the life is really of 
a different quality, and will in the long run appear 
to be different? The question is, what is your 
root? What is it that is producing the actual 
life you are making, and the actual character you 
are growing into? What is the motive power? 
Is it mere desire to get on, or craving for a good 
position among men? Is it respect for your own 
good name? or are you a child of the kingdom ? 
Are you the result of the word of the kingdom ? 
that is, is your conduct being more and more 
animated and regulated, and is your character 
being more and more formed, by the belief that 
God calls you to live for Him and for eternity ? 
Do you like this world really better than one in 
which you have a hope only of spiritual joys, of 
true fellowship with God, and holiness of heart ? 
Can you make good to your own mind, that in 
some quite intelligible sense you are rooted in 
Christ, and grow out of Him? It is the root 
you live from which will eventually show itself 
in you, and determine your eternal position. 
Again, the urgency of the call to Christ is 
deadened by the fact that we are not ¢reated 
differently at present. Men argue: we get on 
well enough now, and the future will take care of 
itself. But this is to brush aside at a blow all 
that we are told of the connection of the present 


THE TARES. 43 





















rith the future. This state bears to a coming 
rorld the relation which seed-time bears to har- 
est. No violence will be done to you at present 
0 convince you that you are useless to God. 
Yo judgment will be declared, no punishment in- 
icted—that were out of season, for in this life 
ye are left to choose freely and without com- 
julsion, whether we desire to be in God’s king- 
lom or not. In this life you must judge yourself 
nd do violence to yourself. But this argues 
\othing regarding the future life. It is only then 
, beginning is made of treatment corresponding 
o character. 

Lastly, not only is the darnel apt to think itself 
ss good as the wheat, but the wheat is apt 
o think itself no better than the darnel. You 
‘an never outstrip others in good as you would 
ike. You are troubled because they seem to be 
is regular, as zealous, as successful in duty as 
vou. Possibly, too, they are not only as judicious 
n conduct, as generous, as true, of as good report 
is yourselves, but, moreover, exercise a healthier 
nfluence than you do on those they live with. 
Some natural infirmity of temper has fixed its 
ndelible brand on you, something which makes 
you less attractive and less influential than you 
night otherwise be. Or perhaps you are choked 
y uncongenial surroundings, kept down in growth 
oy the tares around you, often betrayed into 
sins which better company would have made 


44 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. | 


impossible. Are you somehow continually kept 
back from growing to all you feel you might 
grow to? Is there good in you that has neve 
yet been elicited? Look then to the end, when 
“the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the 
kingdom of their Father.” Be sure only that 
there is that in you which will shine forth if the 
hindrances and blinds are removed. There is no 
change to pass on the wheat ; but only the tar 

shall be taken away, and it will stand revealed, 
good corn. Bring forth your fruit in patience} 
maintain the real distinction between good and 
evil, and at last it will be apparent. 





THE MUSTARD SEED. 


MATT. xiii. 31, 32. 






NEITHER the parable of the Sower nor the 
parable of the Tares was calculated to elate those 
ho were interested in the kingdom of heaven. 
The hindrances and disappointments incident to 
the establishment of that kingdom were too plain- 
ly stated to be gratifying. It was not exhilarat- 
ing to the hearers of these parables to learn that 
the state of things to which they had eagerly 
looked forward as the realization of their ideal, 
and the embodiment of all excellence, could not 
be actually achieved on earth. In this parable 
‘of the mustard seed our Lord turns the other 
‘side of the picture, and affirms that the little 
“movement already stirring society would grow to 
vast dimensions; that the influences He was in- 
troducing so unobtrusively into human history 
were vital, and would one day command attention 
and be productive of untold good. He does not 
anticipate the parable of the leaven, and explain 
‘the precise mode of the spread of Christianity, 
but merely predicts the fact of its growth. He 
‘invites us to compare the visible cause with the 
visible result ; he directs our thoughts to the two 
45 


¥ 
! 
46 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. i 
facts of the small beginning and the ultimate 
grandeur of the kingdom of heaven, and suggests 
that the reason of this growth is that the at | 
nating principle of the kingdom has vitality in it, 
It is the study of the laws of growth which i 
recent years, has given so great an impulse a 
human knowledge and to the delight men find in 
nature. How this world has come to be what 
is; its rude and unpromising beginnings, and i 
steady progress towards perfection; the develo 
ment of an infinitely various and complicated lif 
from a few rudimentary forms ;—these have bee 
the commonest subjects of scientific investigatio 
It has been shown that everything we are ou 
selves now connected with has grown out of som 
thing which went before; that nothing is sel 
originated. The growth of languages and reli 
ions, of customs and forms of government, 
races and nations, has been traced; and a ne 
interest has thus been imparted to all things, f 
everything is found to havea history which ca 
ries us back to the most unlikely roots, and is fu 
ofsurprises. Creation excites wonder ; but growt 
excites an intelligent admiration and wonder a 
well. For, after all investigation and expositio 
of its laws, growth remains marvelous. That th 
swift-flying bird, sensitive to the remotest atmo 
pheric changes, should grow out of the motion 
less, strictly encased egg, is always an astonish 
ment. That the wide-branching tree, hiding th 




















THE MUSTARD SEED. 47 


sky with its foliage, should be the product of a 
small, insignificantly shaped seed, never ceases to 
excite wonder. Nothing could well be more un- 
like the bird than the egg; nothing less like a 
tree than the seed it has grown out of; but by 
an unseen and ultimately inscrutable force the 
egg becomes a bird, and the seed grows into a 
tree. To see the stateliest pile of building filling 
the space which before was empty, makes an ap- 
peal to the imagination: that kind of increase we 
seem to understand; stone is added to stone by 
the will and toil of man. But when we look at 
the deeply-rooted and wide-branching tree, and 
think of the tiny seed from which all this sprang 
without human will or toil, but by an internal 
vitality of its own, we are confronted by the most 
mysterious and fascinating of all things, the life 
that lies unseen in nature. 


In the difference, then, between the. beginning... 


and the maturity of our Lord’s kingdom there was 
nothing exceptional.” ~Thesame difference may 
influence that has greatly helped mankind. Many 
of the inventions to which we are hourly indebted 
entered the world like little seeds casually blown 
to their resting-place ; they floated on, unheeded, 
unobserved, till at last, apparently by the merest 
chance, they caught somewhere, and became pro- 
ductive. Itisthe very commonness of this career, 
from small to great, to which our Lord appeals 


48 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


for the encouragement of His disciples. Here is 
the least among seeds; it flies before your breath; 
it is not noticed in the balance; a miser would 
scarce trouble himself to blow it from the scale; 
the hungry bird will not pause in his flight to 
pick it up; but let a few years go by, and that 
seed shall have become a tree, in which the birds 
of the air may lodge, and which no force can up. 
root. The seed, as you now see it, is doing af 
can do nothing that the tree does; it casts n 
shade, it shelters no birds, it yields no fruit or 
timber, it does not fill the eye and complete the 
landscape; but give it time, and it will do all 
these things, as nothing else will or can. 
In this parable, then, our Lord gave expression 
to three of the ideas which frequently recurred to 
His mind regarding the kingdom of heaven :— 
Ist. Its present apparent insignificance ; 2d. Its 
vitality ; 3d. Its future grandeur. 
1. Our Lord recognized that to the unin. 
structed, ordinary observer His kingdom must ir 
its origin appear insignificant, “the least of all 
seeds.” It might seem less likely to prevail, an¢ 
to become a universal benefit, than some othe 
contemporary systems or influences. In point of 
fact, so extravagant did Christ’s claim to be 4 
benefactor of the race appear, that those whe 
wished to mock Him could devise no more telling 
and bitter taunt than to bow before Him and 
salute Him asa king. That such a tame-spirited, 












THE MUSTARD SEED. 49 


forsaken person should attain a place among the 
strong-handed rulers of the world seemed alto- 
ether too preposterous. The Roman magistrate, 
sefore whom He was arraigned on the charge of 
ebellion against Cesar, found it difficult to treat 
he charge seriously. Open the histories of His 
ime, and your eyes are dazzled with the mag- 
lificence of other monarchs, and the magnitude of 
heir words, but He is barely named—so little 
cnown, that He is sometimes misnamed through 
sheer ignorance. It was no discredit to the most 
earned and accurate of historians to know noth- 
ng of Jesus Christ. This obscurity and insignifi- 
ance would not have been disconcerting to the 
ollowers of a mere teacher, for the best teaching 
s rarely appreciated in the first generation; but 
is our Lord claimed to bea lawgiver and real 
cing, it certainly did not bode well for His king- 
lom that during His lifetime so few obeyed or 
sven knew Him. 

The very circumstance that He was a Jew 
night have seemed to those of His contempora- 
‘ies who were best able to judge, enough in itself 
o ensure the defeat of any purpose of universal 
way. The exclusive character of the religious 
ind social ideas of the Jew, and the hostility with 
Which this exclusiveness was returned by other 
lations, seemed to make it most improbable that 
ull men should be brought into one common 


srotherhood and community by a Jew. More- 
4 


50 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


over, Jesus Himself was no Hellenist, whose Jew- 
ish ideas might have been modified by Greek 
learning and cosmopolitan associations and cus- 
toms; but He was a Jew of purest blood and up- 
bringing, educated in all Jewish customs and 
ideas, and subjected to the ordinary Jewish influ- 
ences, never visiting other lands, and rarely 
speaking to any but His own countrymen. So 
far as we know, He made no inquiries into th 
state of other countries, and read no books to 
inform Himself; He did not send emissaries ta 
Rome, inviting men to consider His claims; He 
made no overtures of any kind to men at a di 
tance ;—that is to say, He did not present Hi 
self as a grown tree branching friendly outwards, 
to which might flock the birds of the air which 
had been driven out by the winter of their own 
land, and had wandered far in search of food, and 
were weary from their long flight. } 
Even among His own people, from whom He 
might have expected a hearty welcome and loyal 
advocacy, He met with either contemptuous: 
neglect or positive opposition. He obtained no 
recognized standing, even among the Jews, 
Those who formed the opinions of society pros 
nounced Him an impostor,and the people weré 
so completely convinced by them, that they clam. 
ored for His death. The few who were at 
tached to Him, and who thoroughly believed in 
His sincerity and spiritual greatness, persistently 



















THE MUSTARD SEED. 51 


misunderstood the essential parts of His purpose 
and teaching. They could not, even to the last, 
rid their minds of the natural impression that His 
being crucified as a malefactor was the end of all 
their hopes. And is it not probable that even 
Jesus Himself, as He was ignominiously hurried 
to His death by a handful of Roman soldiers, 
may have been tempted to think, What is there 
in this to regenerate a world? Will such an 
everyday incident even be remembered next Pass- 
over? Certainly, so far as appearances went, and 
in the judgment of all who saw and were inter- 
ested, His kingdom was at that time comparable 
to anything but a firmly-rooted and flourishing 
tree. 

_ After the resurrection of Christ, His kingdom 
became slightly more visible, but its prospects 
must still have seemed extremely doubtful. A 
handful of men, none of them having much weight 
in the community, or being in any way remark- 
able, compose the force which is to conquer the 
world. To win a single soul to an unpopular 
cause is difficult, but these men were summoned 
to the task of converting all nations. They had 
no ancient institutions, no well-tried methods, 
no strong associations, no funds, no friends to 
back them. On the contrary, everything seemed 
banded against them. Teachers, who disagreed 
in all else, combined to scorn the folly of the 
cross; emperors, who would allow every other 









52 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


form of religion, could not tolerate that of Jesus. 
Everywhere the world was already preoccupied 
by ancient and jealously-guarded religions, by 
habits, and ideas, and traditions adverse to the 
spirit of Christ. The instrument, too, which 
was to convert the world seemed as powerless as” 
the men who were to wieldit. They were to tell 
of Jesus, of His life, His death, His resurrection. 
Was it not vain to expect that remote and bar. 
barous races would become so attached to a 
person they had never seen, that they would 
govern their passions and amend their lives for 
His sake? Was it likely that, on the word of 
unknown men, the person of an unknown man 
should become the center of the world, command- 
ing the adherence of all, and imparting to all the 
most powerful influences? 

2. But at the very moment when our Lord _ 
most conscious of the poor figure His kingdo 
made in the eyes of men, He was absolutel 
confident of its final greatness, because, small a 
it was, 2¢ was of the nature of seed. It had wa 
force in it that nothing could kill; a germin- 
ating and expansive power which would onl 
be quickened by opposition. His own Pt 
the obscurity and limitation to which His caus 
was at first subjected, were not, He knew, t mi 
first symptoms of permanent oblivion, but were’ 
only the sowing of the seed. He was no mor 
anxious than the farmer is who, for the first wee 


THE MUSTARD SEED. 53 


or two, sees no appearance of his plants above 
ground. Our Lord knew that, could He only get 
His kingdom accepted at even.one small point of 
earth, the growth would inevitably and in good 
time follow. 

There are certain human qualities, ideas, utter- 
ances, and acts which are vital and must grow. 
They have in them an expansive, living energy ; 
they sink into the hearts and minds of men, and 
propagate a lasting influence. What, then, is the 
vital element in Christianity ? What isit that has 
given permanence and growth to the kingdom of 
Christ? What did Christ plant that no one else 
has planted? What is it that keeps Him in un- 
dying remembrance, and gathers from each new 
generation fresh subjects for His kingdom? It 
is not the wisdom and beauty of His teaching. 
That might have led us to immortalize His words 
by reprinting and quoting them. Neither is it 
solely the holiness of His life, or the love He 
showed. These might have kindled in us admi- 
ration, but could never have prompted that real 
allegiance which is implied in a kingdom. But it 
is chiefly the revelation of Godin Him which 
draws men to Him. In His death and resurrec- 
tion we get assurance of Divine love and Divine 
power abiding in Him. It is God in Him that 
draws us. We cleave to him, because through 
Him we are lifted to God and to eternity. In His 
brief career He gives us a perception of the real- 


54 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ity of the spiritual world, the permanence of the 

individual, and the nearness and love of God, 
which nothing else gives us. In Him men meet 

a God satisfying all their expectations; so de- 

voted to their interests, that He lives and dies 
with them, and for them; so hopeful regarding - 
them, that He proclaims pardon and newness of 

life to sinners; so victorious over all the evils 
weighing upon man, that He conquers death itself, — 
and throws open to all the gates of life everlast-_ 
ing. ‘ 
The seed is the highest product of the plant: 
the fruit is but the accompaniment of the seed; 
it is into the seed that the plant each year puts 
its life. So in man, the ripest product of the 
individual, the actions or words into which he 


gathers up his whole character and strength,—_ 
it is these which are vital and germinant. The 


vital element in the life of Christ cannot be mis-— 
taken : it was, in a word, the Divine Son giving © 
Himself for us; God expressing the fulness of 
Divine Sympathy and sacrifice in our behalf—_ 
a seed, surely, from which great things must 
spring. 

3. Our Lord points to the eventual greatness 
of His kingdom. The despised seed, ground 
into the soil under the heel of contempt ard 
hatred, will become a tree, whose leaves shall Le 
for the healing of the nations. The disciples 
do not seem to have gathered from this parable 


THE MUSTARD SEED. 55 


the encouragement which was laid up for them 
in it; but an instructed onlooker might have 
admonished the crucifiers of the Lord that they 
were fulfilling His words—“ That cross which 
you are setting up, and which you will take 
down before the sun is set, shall stand in the 
thought of countless millions as the point of 
earth most illuminated by the light of heaven ; 
that blood which you are shedding, as you 
would pour water out of your way on the 
ground, is to be recognized by your fellow-men 
and by God as precious, as that by which the 
souls of men are redeemed and purified.” 

The kingdom of heaven has indeed become 
atree. It would be difficult to count even the 
greater branches of it; difficult to number the 
various twigs which depend upon the central 
stem ; impossible to count theleaves or to form 
an idea of the fruit which, through past years, 
has gradually ripened and fallen from it. This 
religion which emanated from a country so 
detested by the surrounding nations that they 
might be expected to say of it, asthe Jews 
themselves of Nazareth, ‘Can any good thing 
come out of Judea? ”—this religion propagated 
by Jews who had become Christians, so that 
being excommunicated by their own country- 
men, and naturally hated by all other people, 
they seemed the most unlikely instruments to 
commend new ideas; this religion which could 


56 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


te ie - 


offer no high posts or secular rewards, and 
numbered few wise, wealthy, or noble among 
its adherents; which would not tolerate other 
religions, and yet proclaimed doctrines which 
excited the ridicule of the educated; which 
demanded from all alike, not only an abso- 
lutely pure morality and a repulsive and hum- 
bling self-renunciation, but a newness of spirit 
impossible to the natural man; this religion which 
seemed to have everything against it, which 
seemed like a sickly child which it was scarcely 
worth calling by a name to be remembered as 
a living thing,—this has grown to be the greatest 
of all powers for good in the world. The seed 
determines the character of all that springs 
from it; the quality of the fruit and its abun- 
dance may vary with the nature of the soil and_ 
with the presence or absence of careful cultiva-— 
tion and other advantages, but the tree will 
still be recognizable as of that kind to which 
the seed belonged. And as the seed of the 
kingdom of heaven was love and holiness and 
Divine power, so have similar fruits been borne — 
by men wherever the kingdom has come. The 
outmost branch, looking in an opposite direc-— 
tion from the distant branches on the other 
side of the tree, and apparently quite dissoci-— 
ated from these branches, is still identified with ; 
them by the fruit it bears. Wherever in all 
these past ages, and in all the scattered countries 


THE MUSTARD SEED. 57 


of Christendom, there has been a Christ-like 
life; wherever sinners have been drawn to love 
God and hate their sin through the knowledge 
of the cross; wherever in hope of a _ blessed 
immortality men have borne the sorrows of 
time without bitterness, and committed their 
dead to the grave in expectation of a life be- 
yond,—there the seed Christ sowed has been 
showing its permanent vitality. 

The figure of the tree inevitably suggests 
other considerations regarding the Church, be- 
sides those which are directly taught in the 
parable. The-tree—with—its-single stem and 
countless branches, is-only—too-true a picture 
of the diverging belief_and—wership—of_those 
who own a commo i ist. Sometimes, 
indeed, one is tempted to compare the Church 
to one of those trees in which the branches 
diverge as soon as they appear above ground, 
so that you cannot tell whether the tree is 
really one or many. In some of its aspects, 
again, the church resembles the huge tree that 
stands on the village green, looking benignly 
down on the joys of the young, and giving 
shade and shelter to the aged, seeing genera- 
tion after generation drop away like its own 
leaves, but itself living through all with the 
freshness of its early days; its lower bark only 
marked by the ambition of those who have 
sought to identify their now scarcely legible 


58 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


names with its undecaying life, but whose work 
has after all not entered into the life of the tree, 
but only marred its external hull. Again, we 
see that some of the lowest, earliest grown 
branches are quite dead or drooping; that 
Christianity has passed from the people among 
whom it first found root, and that satyrs dance 
where the praises of Christ were once sung. It 
would almost seem as if there were a melan- 
choly accuracy in the figure used in the parable, 
and that the tree, having once attained its full 
dimensions, grows no more. After some years 
the rapid growth which was so striking in the 
young tree is no longer discernible. It main- 
tains equal or perhaps stronger life, but spring 
after spring you look in vain for any discernible 
increase in size. But certain it is that this 
plant which Christ planted has shown vitality, 
drawing nutriment from every soil in which it 
has been tried, and assimilating to its own life 
and substance all that is good in the soil, using 
the faculties and accomplishments, the literary 
or artistic or commercial leanings and gifts of 
the various races so as to further the true wel- 
fare of men; gathering strength from sunshine 
and storm alike, cherishing a hidden life through 
the long winters when every branch seemed 
hopelessly dead, and drawing supplies of vital- 
izing moisture from sources beyond the ken of 
man when the scorching heats threatened to 


THE MUSTARD SEED. 59 


wither up every living leaf. The tree is grow- 
ing now, gradually absorbing into itself all the 
widening thoughts of men, and by the chemistry 
of its own life extracting nutriment from criti- 
cism, from philosophy, from research, from social 
and political movements, from everything that 
forms the great stirring human world in which 
it is rooted ; not afraid to stand out in the open 
and face the day, but gaining vigor from every 
brisker air that tosses its branches. 

This parable was spoken for the encourage- 
ment of the disciples: it is needed still for the 
encouragement of all who are interested in the 
extension of Christ’s kingdom. In many respects 
our outlook is even more hopeless than that of the 
first disciples. The novelty, the first enthusiasm, 
the external signs, are all gone; the solidarity of 
the Church is also gone, and in its place we have 
to overcome the discrediting exhibitions of dis- 
cord and internal conflict, as well as the weaken- | 
ing influence of skepticism, and the slowly cor- 
roding materialism that is destroying the very 
foundations of religion. The missionary enter- 
prise of the first disciples seems never to have ex- 
tended very far from the Mediterranean coasts. 
They were unaware of the vast multitudes be- 
yond, and of the solidity and attractiveness of 
some of the religions already in occupation ; 
whereas to the eye of the modern Church popula- 
tions are disclosed, numbered by hundreds of 


60 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


millions, and adhering to religions more ancient 
and more outwardly impressive than our own. 
Our zeal, too, is slackened by the very fact that 
all this yet remains to be done; that Christianity 
should have been growing for nearly two thousand 
years, and that it has not yet convinced all men 
of its superiority, and that in places where it has 
been most ardently received it has borne fruit of 
which every man must feel ashamed. 

To all persons who are disheartened, whether 
by the apparent fruitlessness of their own efforts 
or by the slow growth of the Church at large, this 
parable says, You must measure things not by 
their size, but by their vitality. What you can 
do may be very little, and once it is done there 
may be no sign of results; but if you put your- 
self into it, if it come from the heart—a heart 
whose earnestness and hope are the result of con- 
tact with Christ—then fruit will one day be 
borne. You must have some imagination. You 
must have some faith that will enable you to wait 
patiently for fruit. Make sure that what you sow 
is good seed; that what you teach your children 
is true; that what you strive to introduce into 
society is sound and helpful; that the ideas you 
propagate, the charity you support, the industry 
you seek to advance, are all such as belong to the 
kingdom of Christ, and you may be sure your 
labor is not lost. You may not see the results 
of your actions. You may not see full grown the 


| THE MUSTARD SEED. 61 


trees of your planting, but your children will lie 
under their shade, and dream of your sheltering 
forethought, and strive to fulfil your best pur- 
poses. Do not be discouraged because all is 
not yet done on earth, and much remains for you 
to do ; do not be discouraged because there is room 
for sacrifice and faith, devotedness, and wisdom, 
and love, and skill. It is not hot-house results 
we seek to produce, nor, like the Indian jugglers, 
to make a tree visibly shoot up by sleight of hand. 
What we look for is the real growth of human 
good, and this can be accomplished by no rapid 
and magical processes, but only by the patient 
nutrition of the soil by all that is truest and deep- 
est in human nature, and by all that is most real 
and most testing in human effort. Honestly seek 
the growth of this tree, and be not too greatly dis- 
mayed by the portentous difficulties of the task. 
“ He that observeth the wind shall not sow, and 
he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap. As 
thou knowest not what is the way of the spirit, 
even so thou knowest not the works of God who 
maketh all. In the morning sow thy seed, and 
in the evening withhold not thy hand, for thou 
knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or 
that, or whether they both shall be alike good.” 
In conclusion, is it not relevant to ask whether 
we have joined the Christian Church, because it 
is large, or because it is living? Simon in the 
temple held all Christendom in his arms, and yet 


62 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


felt sure the redemption of the world was nigh. 
Is your faith like his? Is it the Person of Christ 
and not what has grown round His person that 
you cleave to? Do you find that in Christ which 
compels you to say that, though you were the 
only Christian, yourself the Church visible, you 
must abide by Him? Is there some independ- 
ence in your choice, some individuality in your 
experience? Can you say, with some signifi- 
cance, ‘“ I know Him in whom I have believed ” ? 
or do you but adopt the fashion that prevails, 
and feel the propriety and safety of going with 
the majority? In any case it is well that you 
recognize that there is this tree planted by the 
Lord Himself, and still growing upon earth. 
There is upon earth a society of men not always 
easy to find, but in true sympathy with Him; a 
progress of human affairs to which He gave the 
., initial impulse. There is on earth a tree, the 
‘seed of which is His own life, whose growing bulk 
~ embodies, from generation to generation, all that 
exists in the world of His purpose and work. The 
good He intended for men He deposited in that 
seed. He came to impart to men permanent 
blessings. Hesaw ourcondition, recognized what 
we needed, and introduced into the world what 
He knew would achieve the happiness of every 
one of us. 


THE LEAVEN. 
MATT. xiii. 33. 


THIS parable directs attention to two points 
connected with the spread of Christianity. It 
illustrates— 

1. First, the £éxd of change which Christianity 
works in the world ; and 

2. Second, the method by which this change is 
wrought. 

1. First, our Lord here teaches that the change 
which He meant to effect in the world was a 
change, not so much of the outward form, as of 
the spirit and character of all things. The prop- 
agation of His influence is illustrated not by the 
figure of a woman taking a mass of dough and 
baking it up into new loaves of a shape hitherto 
unseen; but by the figure of a woman putting 
that into the dough which alters the character of 
the whole mass. She may set on the table loaves 
that are to all appearance the same as the old, 
but no one will taste them without perceiving 
the difference. The old shapes are retained, the 
familiar marks appear still on the loaves, but it is 
a different bread. The appearance remains the 
same, the reality isaltered. The form is retained, 


but the character is changed. 
63 


64 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


—————— 


There are two ways in which you may rev-— 
olutionize any country or society. You may 
either pull down all the old forms of government, © 
or you may fill them with men of a different 
spirit. If an empire is going to ruin, you may 
either change the empire into a republic, or you — 
may put the right man in the office of emperor. 
If any society or club or association has become 
effete and a nuisance, doing harm instead of good, © 
you may reform it either by revising its constitu- 
tion, making new laws and regulations, and so- 
making it a new society, or you may fill its official - 
positions with men of a right spirit, leaving its” 
form of constitution untouched. A watch stops, © 
and somebody tells you it needs new works, but the - 
watchmaker tells you it only needs cleaning. A 
machine refuses to work, and people think the - 
construction is wrong, but the skilled mechanic | 
pushes aside the ignorant crowd and puts all to 
rights with a few drops of oil. “ Your bread is 
unwholesome,” says the public to the baker, and 
he says, “ Well, I'll send you loaves of a new 
shape;”’ but the woman of the parable follows 
the wiser course of altering the quality of the 
bread. 

Few distinctions are of wider application, few 
need more careful pondering by all of us whether 
in our social, political, or religious capacity. 
Many of us take a huge interest in the institutions 
of our country, and are ready to lay our finger on 


THE LEAVEN. 65 


this and that as needing reform. This parable 
should therefore haunt the ear, and always sug- 
gest the question: Is this or that institution 
radically bad ? or, supposing good and wise men 
were working it, would it not serve a good pur- 
pose? What is wanted in the world is not new 
forms, but anew spirit inthe present forms. New 
forms, new institutions, new regulations, new oc- 
cupations, new trades, new ways of occupying our 
time, new customs are really as little to the pur- 
pose as putting the old make of bread into new 
shapes. What our Lord by this parable warns 
us to aim at and to look for is rather the posses- 
sion which Christian feeling and views take of 
previously existing customs, institutions, relation- 
ships, occupations, than the new facts and habits 
to which Christian feeling gives birth. It is the 
regenerating rather than the creative power of 
Christ’s Spirit that He dwells upon. His Spirit, 
He says, does not require anew channel to be 
dug for it; its fuller stream may flood the old 
banks, may wear out corners here and there, may 
break out in new directions, but in the main, the 
channel remains the same. The man has the 
same arteries, but now they are filled with health- 
giving blood. The lump is the same lump, and 
done up into the same old shapes, but it is all 
leavened now. 

The coming of the kingdom of heaven does 
not then consist in an entire alteration of human 

5 





66 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


life, as we now know it. The kingdom of heaven | 
comes not with observation, but is within you. 
It does not alter empires into republics, it does” 
not abolish work and give us all ease, it does not 
find fault with the universal frame of things, oll 
refuse to fit itself in with the world as it is; but 
it accepts things as it finds them, and leavens all 
it touches. As the outward forms of the world’s — 
business, its offices and dignities, itsneed of work” 
and ways of working, would be little altered if } 
all men were suddenly to become absolutely 
truthful or absolutely sober, so the change which © 
Christ proposed to effect was of an inward, not of - 
an outward kind. It was to be first in the in- 
dividual, and only through the individual on 

society at large. Our Lord in establishing a king. — 
dom on earth, did not intend to erect a vast 
organization over-against the world, but He meant ~ 
to introduce into the world itself a leaven which — 
should rule and subdue all to His own Spirit. The ~ 
Church itself therefore may become too visible, — 
has become in many respects too visible, and has — 
thus unfortunately succeeded in at once separat- 
ing itself from the world asa distinct and alien — 
institution, and becoming entirely “of the world,” — 
by imitating the institutions, the ambitions, the — 
power, the show of the world. It has learned to — 
measure its success very largely by the bulk it 
occupies in the eyes of men, by its well-ordered 
services, its creeds and laws and courts ; and it has 


. 


THE LEAVEN. 67 


too much forgotten that its function is of quite 
another kind, namely, to be zdden among the 
flour. 

2. Secondly, this parable pointedly directs at- 
tention to the precise method by which the king- 
dom of heaven is to grow; or, as we should 
‘more naturally say, by which the whole world is 
to be Christianized. To one who considers the 
probable future of any new or young force in 
the world, to one who stands beside the cradle of 
‘anew power and speculates on its future, there 
will occur several ways in which it may possibly 
prevail and attain universality. It may so com- 
mend itself to the common sense of men, or it 
may so appeal to their regard to their own in- 
terests, asto win universal acceptance. Railways, 
banks, insurance companies, do not need statutes 
compelling men to use them; they win their way 
by their own intrinsic advantages. There have 
been governments so wisely administered, that 
men not naturally subject to them have sought to 
be taken under their protection for the sake of ad- 
vantages accruing. Some kingdoms have thus 
been largely extended ; but more commonly they 
have been extended by the sword, by the strong 
hand. Not by this latter method would Christ 
have His religion propagated. Yet the idea that 
men can somehow be compelled to accept the 
truth, seems never to be quite eradicated from 
the human mind. Very slowly is it recognized 





68 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


that to support a religion by any kind of force in- 
stead of by reason alone, is to admit that reason 
condemnsit. The methods of compulsion change ; 
the coarser forms of compulsion, the sword 
and the stake, give place; but more disguised 
and less startling forms of compulsion remain, 
equally opposed to the spirit of Christ. 

The spread of Christianity, then, is illustrated 
in this parable, not by the propagation of fruit 
trees, nor even by the sowing of seed, but by 
the leavening of a mass of dough. Religion, 
that is to say, spreads not by a fresh sowing in 
each case, but by contagion. No doubt the‘e is’ 
a direct agency of God in each case, but sod 
works through natural means; and the natural 
means here pointed at is personal influence. And 
it is not the agency of God in the matter which 
our Lord wishes here to illustrate, and therefore. 
He says nothing about it. Heis not careful to 
guard Himself against misrepresentation by com- 
pleting in every utterance a full statement of the 
whole truth, but presses one point at a time; and 
the point He here presses is, that He depends 
upon personal influence for the spread of His 
Spirit. The Church often trusts to massive and 
wealthy organizations, to methods which are, 
calculated to strike every eye; but according to 
the Head of the Church His religion and spirit 
are to be propagated by an influence which 
operates like an infectious disease, invisible, with- 





THE LEAVEN. 69 


out apparatus and pompous equipment, succeed- 
ing all the better where it is least observed. Our 
Lord bases His expectation of the extension of His 
Spirit throughout the world not upon any grand 
and powerful institutions, not on national establish- 
ments of religion or any such means, but on the 
secret, unnoticed influence of man upon man. 
And indeed there exists no mightier power for 
good or evil than personal influence. Take even 
those who least intend to influence you and seem 
least capable of it. The little child that cannot 
stand alone will work that tenderness in the heart 
of a ruffan which no acts of parliament or prison 
discipline have availed to work. The wail of the 
suffering infant will bring a new spirit into the 
man whom the strongest police regulations have 
tended only to harden and make more defiant 
andembittered. By his confidence in your word, 
the child is a more effectual monitor of truthful- 
mess than the keen or suspicious eye of the 
grown man who distrusts you: the child’s reck- 
lessness of to-morrow, his short sadnesses and 
soon recovered smiles, his ignorance of the world 
and the world’s misery, are the proper balance 
of your anxiety, and insinuate into your heart 
some measure of his own freshness and hope. 
Or what can reflect more light upon God’s pa- 
tience with ourselves than the unwearying love 
and repeated forgiveness that a child demands, 
and the long doubting with which we wait for 


7O THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


the fruit of years of training? So that it is hard 
to say whether the parent has more influence on 
the child, or the child on the parent? Ortake 
those who have been pushed aside from the busy 
world by ill-health or misfortune—have not theit 
unmurmuring patience, their Christian hope, their 
need of our compassion, done muchto mold our 
spirits to a sober and chastened habit ? have they 
not imparted to us the spirit of Christ, and cher 
ished within us a true recognition of what is es. 
sential and what accidental, what good and what 
evil in this world? 

What, then, does the parable teach us fia 
ing the operation of this influence? It teaches 
us, first, that there must be a mixing; that is 
to say, there must be contact of the closest kin 
between those who are and those who are no 
the subjects of Christ. Manifestly, no good i 
done by the leaven while it lies by itself ; it migh 
as well be chalk or anything else. It must b 
mixed with the flour. So must Christians b 
kneaded up together with all kinds of annoyin 
and provoking and uncongenial people, that th 
spirit of Christ which they bear may become uni 
versal. Had our Lord not eaten with publican 
and sinners ; had He sensitively shrunk from th 
rough and irreverent handling He received amon 
coarse men who called Him “ Samaritan,” “ devil, 
and “sot;” had He secluded Himself in the a 
preciative household of Bethany; had He no 


THE LEAVEN. 71t 


made Himself the most accessible Person, little 
of His Spirit would have passed into other men. 
Other things being equal, the effect of Christian 
character varies with the thoroughness of the 
mixing. It is so with all personal influence. 
The depth of the love, the closeness of the inti- 
macy, the frequency and thoroughness of the in- 
tercourse, is the measure of the effect produced. 
In a country such as our own, in which the 
population is dense, and in which an unobstructed 
communication subsists between man and man, 
things constantly tend to equalize; and what 
yesterday was the property of one person is to- 
day enjoyed by thousands. And precisely as a 
fashion or a contagious disease passes from man 
to man, with inconceivable and sometimes appal- 
ling rapidity, so does evil or good example prop- 
agate itself with as certain and speedy an increase. 
And this it does all the more effectually because 
insensibly ; because we do not brace ourselves to 
resist this subtle atmospheric influence, nor wash 
our hands with any disinfectant provided against 
these imperceptible stains. There is no quarantine 
for the moral leper, nor any desert in the moral 
world where a man can be evil for himself alone. 
For this mixing is provided for in various ways. 
It is provided for by mature, which sets us in 
families and mixes us up in all the familiarities 
and intimacies of domestic life; and by soczety, 
which compels us, in the prosecution of our 


72 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ordinary callings, to come into contact with one 


another of a close and influential kind. . One part 
of the world is “mixed” with other parts by com- 
merce, by colonization, by conquest, so that there 
exists a ceaseless giving and taking of good and 


evil. One generation is mixed with others by — 


reading their history and their literary remains, 


and by inheriting their traditions and their long © 
established usages. So that whether we will or 
no this mixing goes on, and we can as little pre- 


vent certain results arising from this intercourse 


as we Can prevent our persons from giving off heat — 


when we enter an atmosphere colder than our- 
selves. We find it to be true that 


“ The world’s infectious: few bring back at eve 
Immaculate the manners of the morn. 
Something we thought is blotted : we resolv’d, 
Is shaken: we renounced, returns again. 

Each salutation may slide in a sin 
Unthought before, or fix a former flaw.” 


But beyond nature’s provision, beyond the 


unavoidable contact with our fellow-men to which — 


we are all compelled, there are voluntary friend- 
ships and associations into which we enter, and 
casual meetings which we unawares are thrown 
into. Such casual and passing acquaintanceships 


have very frequently illustrated the truth of this — 


parable, and have been the means of imparting 
the Spirit of Christ in very unlikely quarters. 
And it would help us to use wisely such acci- 


THE LEAVEN. 73 


dental opportunities if we bore in mind that if 
there are to be any additions made to the king- 
dom of Christ, these additions are chiefly to be 
made from among those careless, worldly, antag- 
onistic persons who do not at present respond to 
any Christian sentiments. But besides the min- 
gling which nature, and what may be called ac- 
cident, afford, there are connections we form of 
our own choice, and companies we enter which 
we might, if we chose, avoid. There is a border- 
land of amusements, occupations, duties, common 
to the godly, and the ungodly, and for the reg- 
ulation of our conduct, in respect to such inter- 
course, this parable suffices. Can the occupation 
be leavened, and can it be leavened by us? Can 
it be engaged in in a right spirit, and are we sure 
enough of our own stability to engage in it with 
benefit? A man of strong physique may scathe- 
lessly enter a room out of which a weaker consti- 
tution would inevitably carry infection. And it 
is foolish to argue that because some other person 
is none the worse of going to this or that com- 
pany, or engaging in this or that pursuit, therefore 
you would not be the worse of it. You would 
not so argue if your entrance into an infected 
house was in question. 

But there is also a culpable refusal to mix, as 
well as an inconsiderate eagernesstodo so. Most 
of us shrink from the responsibility of materially 
influencing the life of another person. Ask a 


74 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


man for advice about any important matter, and 
you know what devices he will fall upon to avoid 
advising you. Many of us are really afraid of 
incurring the hazardous responsibility of making 
a man a Christian. Two opposite feelings dis- 
pose us to shrink from mingling with all kinds of 
people. One isa feeling of hopelessness about 
others. They seem so remote from the acknowl- 
edgment of Christ’s rule, that we feel as if they 
could never be leavened. The parable reminds 
us, that while no doubt it is impossible to leaven 
sand, so long as the meal remains meal it may be 
leavened. The other feeling is one rather of de- 
spair about ourselves than about others. We feel 
as if our influence could only do harm. We are 
afraid to live out our inward life freely and 
strongly lest it injureothers. This feeling, how- 
ever, should prompt us neither to seclude our- 
selves from society, nor to behave in a constrained — 
and artificial manner in society, but to renew our 
own connection with the leaven till we feel sure 
our whole nature is throughout renewed. If any 
one is exercising a healthy influence while we are 
languid and incapable, it is simply because that 
other person is in connection with Christ. That 
connection is open to us as well. | 
The mixing being thus accomplished, how is 
the process continued? Besides mingling with 
society and joining freely in allthe innocent ways 
of the world, what is a Christian to do in order 


THE LEAVEN. 75 


that his Christian feeling may be communicated 
to others? The answer is, He is to be a Chris- 
tian; not to be anxious to show himself a Chris- 
tian, but to be careful to be one. It has been 
wisely said that “the true philosophy or method 
of doing good is, first of all and principally, to 
be good—to havea character that will of itself 
communicate good.” This is the very teaching 
of the parable, which says, ‘“‘ Be a Christian, and 
you must make Christians, or help to make them. 
Be leaven, and you will leaven.” The leaven 
does not need to say, I am leaven; nor to say 
that which lies next it, Be thou leavened. By 
the inevitable communication of the properties 
of the leaven to that which lies beside it, and by 
this again infecting what is beyond, the whole, 
gradually and unseen, but naturally and certainly, 
is leavened. 

This illustration of the leaven must, of course, 
not be too hard pressed, as if the parable meant 
that only by the unconscious influence of char- 
acter and not at all by the conscious and voluntary 
influence of speech and action, the kingdom of 
Christ is to be extended. Yet no one can fail to 
observe that the illustration of the parable is 
more appropriate to the unconscious than to the 
intended influence which Christians exercise on 
those around them. It is rather the all-pervad- 
ing and subtle extension of Christian principles 
than their declared and aggressive advocacy that 


76 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


is brought before the mind by the figure of 
leaven. It reminds us that men are most sus- 
ceptible to the influence that flows from char- 
acter. This influence sheds itself off in a thou- 
sand ways too subtle to be resisted, and in forms 
so fine as to insinuate themselves where words 
would find no entrance. A man is in many cir- 
cumstances more likely to do good by acting in 
a Christian manner, than by drawing attention to 
the faults of others and exposing their iniquity. 
The less ostentatious, the less conscious the in- 
fluence exercised upon us is, the more likely are 
we to admit it. And when we are compelled to 
reprove, or to advise, or to entreat, this also must 
be in simplicity and as the natural expression, 
not the formal and forced exhibition of Christian 
feeling. The words uttered by a shallow-hearted 
and self-righteous Pharisee may by God’s grace 
turn a sinner from the error of his ways; the 
lump of ice, itself chill and hard, may be used as 
a lens to kindle and thaw other objects; but 
notwithstanding this, he who does not speak with 
his whole character backing what he says, may 
expect to fail. It is man that influences man; 
not the words or individual actions of aman, but 
the complete character which his whole life 
silently reveals. 

If then you sometimes reproach yourself for 
not exercising any perceptible influence for good 
over some friend or child, if it distasbs you that 


THE LEAVEN. 77 


you have done less than you might have done by 
conversation or direct appeal, it may indeed be 
quite true that you have thus fallen short of 
your duty; yet remember that conduct often 
tells far more than talk, and that your conduct 
hascertainly told upon the secret thoughts of 
your friend, whereas were you to speak merely 
for the sake of exonerating your conscience, the 
chances are, you would speak in an awkward, 
artificial, and ineffective manner. That conver- 
sation is often the most religious which in ap- 
pearance is most secular; which concerns bills, 
and cargoes, and investments, and contracts, and 
family arrangements, and literature; and which, 
without any allusion to God, the soul, and eter- 
nity, secretly impregnates the whole of human 
life with the Spirit of Christ. If that only is to 
be reckoned religious conversation in which the 
topics of religion are discussed, then religious 
conversation has commonly produced more heat 
and bitterness and antagonism to Christ’s Spirit 
than any other. 

While, then, direct address forms one great 
part of the means of leavening those around 
you, it is to be borne in mind, that in the first 
place you must de what you wish others to be- 
come. If not, then certainly nothing that you 
can say is at all likely tocompensate for the evil 
you may do by your character. It does not need 
that you intend evil to any ; it w7// de out whether 


78 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


you mean it or no. If you are yourself evil, then 
most certainly you are making others evil. Can 
you number the times that you have checked the 
utterance of Christian feeling in those who knew 
they would find no response in you? Can you tell 
how many have been confirmed in a sinful course 
by your winking at their faults, and have none 
been led into sin by your removing the scruples 
of their innocence? Are you sure that your ex- 
ample has never turned the balance the wrong 
way at some critical hour of your neighbor's life? 
Is there no one who can stand forward and charge 
you with having left him in darkness about his 
duty, when you might have enlightened him? 
with having made him easy in sin by your pleas- 
ant, affable, unreproving demeanor towards 
him? Are there none who to all eternity will 
bear the punishment of sins in which you were 
aiding and abetting ; none whom you have direct- 
ly encouraged to evil, who would, but for you, 
have been clear of evil thoughts, desires, and 
deeds of which they now are guilty; none in 
whose punishment you might see the punishment 
of sins which were as much yours as theirs, and 
the memory of which might seem sufficient, if that 
were possible, to poison the very joys of heaven? 
Do not turn the warning of this parable aside 
by the thought, Am I my brother’s keeper? Most 
assuredly you are responsible for your own char- 
acter, and for all its effects. If you are not doing 


THE LEAVEN. 79 


d to others, it is because there is something 
wrong in yourself. If you are not leavening others, 
it is because you are yourself unleavened: for 
there is no such thing as leaven that does not 
impart its qualities to that which is about it. Can 
you confine the perfume to the flower, or restrict 
the light of the suntoitsown globe? Just as 
little can you restrain all Christian qualities 
a your own person: something material, 
something essential to Christian character is lack- 
ing if it be not influencing those about it. 

It is a glorious consummation that this parable 
speaks of. It tells of a mixing that is to go on 
till “the whole” is leavened. The Spirit of 
Christ is to pervade all things. That Spirit is to 
take possession of all national characteristics and 
all individual gifts. Every variety of quality, of 
human faculty, temperament, and endowment, is 
to be Christianized, that all mayserve Christ. In 
His kingdom is to be gathered all that has ever 
served or gladdened humanity: the freshness of 
childhood and its simplicity, the sagacity, gravity, 
and self-command of age, the enterprise and ca- 
pacity of manhood, the qualities that suffering 
Matures, and those that are nurtured by pros- 
perity ; all occupations that have invited and 
stimulated and rewarded the energies of men, all 
modes of human life, and all affections that con- 
science approves, all that is the true work, joy, and 
glory, of our nature is to bepervaded with the 


80 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


sanctifying, purifying, elevating leaven of Christ’s 
Spirit. And this isto be achieved not otherwise 
than by personal influence. Is it possible that 
you should have no desire to help in this ? that 
you should be in the world of men and not care to 
see it accomplishing this destiny ? that you should 
know the earnestness of Christ in this behalf, and 
never lift a finger or open your lips to aid Him? 
Surely it will pain you to come tothe end of life 
and have it to reflect that not one soul has been 
effectually helped by you. Would you not sav 
many if by a wish you could lift them to the gate 
of heaven? Is it, then, because of the little la- 
bor and sacrifice that are needed for this purpos 
that you hold back from helping? Is ther 
nothing you can do, is there nothing you ough 
to do in the way of leavening some little bit o 
the great mass? Come back yourselves to th 
leaven, cultivate diligently that fellowship wit 
Christ Himself, which is alone sufficient to equip 
you for this great calling. Make sure of th 
reality of your own acceptance of His Spirit, and 
then whatever you do, utter, touch, will all be 
leavened. 


THE HID TREASURE AND THE 
PEARL OF PRICE. 


MATT. xiii. 44-46. 


_ THESE two parables have one and the same 
object. They are meant to exhibit the incom- 
parable value of the kingdom of heaven. They 
exhibit this value not by attempting to describe 
‘the kingdom or its various advantages, but by 
‘depicting the eagerness with which he who finds 
it and recognizes its value, parts with all to make 
‘it his own. This eagerness is not dependent on 
the previous expectations or views or condition 
(of the finder of the kingdom, but is alike dis- 
played whether the finder is lifted by his dis- 
‘covery out of acknowledged poverty, or has his 
“hands already filled with goodly pearls; whether 
he has no outlook and hope at all, or is eagerly 
feng for perfect happiness. The one parable 
illustrates the eagerness of a poor man who lights 
‘upon the treasure apparently by accident; the 
other illustrates the eagerness of a rich man 
whose finding of the pearl of price is the result 
‘of carefully studied and long sustained search. 
This difference in the two parables sets clearly 
om te mind a distinction which is ee, 
I 


| 














i 


82 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


apparent among those who become Christians, 
Men naturally view life very differently, and take 
up from the first very various attitudes towards 
the world into which we all have come. One 
person is from the first quite at home in it, an- 
other slinks through it as if there were nothing 
friendly or congenial to him here. One man 
seems to regard it as a banqueting house which 
is to be made the most of ere the sun rise and 
dispel his illusion, while another uses it as a 
battle-field where conquests are to be made, and 
where all is to be done in grim earnest and stren- 
uously with no thought of pleasure. And as 
these parables indicate, there are men born with 
placid and contented natures, others with eager, 
soaring, insatiable spirits; some, in a word, are 
born merchants, others day-laborers. Som 

that is, are born with a noble instinct which nt | 
forsakes them, but prompts them to believe that 
there is infinite joy and satisfaction to be found, 
and that it shall be theirs: they cannot rest with 
small things, but are driven always forward to 
more and higher. Others, again, never loo 

beyond their present attainment, cannot under. 
stand the restless ambition that weeps for more: 
worlds, have no speculation in them, no broad 
plan of life, nor much idea that any purpose is to 
be served by it. They have the peaceful, happ 

industry which makes the day’s labor easy, but: 
not the enterprise which can plan a life’s wor 





THE HID TREASURE. 83 


and make every available material on earth sub- 
serve its plan. 

This difference, when exhibited in connection 
with religion, becomes very marked. Looking 
upon some men, you would say you don’t know 
how ever they are to be brought to Christ, they 
are so thoroughly at home and at rest in their 
daily business, and this seems to afford them so 
much interest, satisfaction, and reward that you 
cannot fancy them so much as once reflecting 
whether something more is not needed. They 
seem so peculiarly fitted for this world, you can 
fancy them going on in the same sphere forever. 
Of others, again, you are perpetually wondering 
how they have not long ago found what they 
have been so long seeking; you know that, em- 
ploy themselves as they will in this world, their 
inward thought is writing vanity on all this world 
gives them—they crave a spiritual treasure. 

In the first of these two parables, then, we see 
how the kingdom of heaven is sometimes found 
by those who are not seeking it. The point of 
this part of the parable and its distinction from 
the other seems to lie in this, that while the man 
‘Was giving a deeper furrow to his field, intent 
only on his team, his plowshare suddenly 
grated on the slab that concealed or rung upon 
‘the chest that contained the treasure, or turned 
up a glittering coin that had fallen out in the 
hasty burial of the store. Or he may have been 


] 
’ 
7 
( 
; 


84 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


sauntering through a neighbor’s field, when his 
eye is suddenly attracted by some sign which 
makes his heart leap to his mouth and fixes him 
for the moment to the spot, because he knows 
that treasure must be there. He went outin the 
morning thinking of nothing less than that before 
nightfall his fortune would be made—suddenly, 
without effort or expectation of his, he sees un- 
told wealth within his grasp. He knows nothing 
of the history of the treasure—does not know on 
whose feet these bright anklets gleamed in the 
dance, knows none of the touching memories that 
are associated with that signet ring, nothing of 
the long hard strife by which these gold-pieces 
were acquired, nor of the disaster which tore them 
from the reluctant hand of the possessor. It is 
not zs blood that has dyed the gold on that 
jewel-hilted scimitar. He can imagine the care- 
worn man when trouble and war overran the 
land, stealing out in the darkness and making his 
treasure secure, and marking it by signs which, 
alas! he was never again to note; but he knows 
nothing of him, knew nothing of him. Ages 
before, this treasure had been hid; for him it had 
been prepared without any intention or labor of 
his, and now suddenly he lights upon it; out of, 
poverty he to his own astonishment steps into 
wealth, and his whole life is changed for him 
without hope or effort of his own. ‘ 

So, says our Lord, is the kingdom of nave 


THE HID TREASURE. 85: 


Suddenly, in the midst of other thoughts a man 
is brought face to face with Christ, and while 
earning his daily bread and seeking for no more 
than success in life can give him, unexpectedly 
finds that eternal things are his. Christ is found 
of them that sought Him not. Is it not often 
so? The man has begun life not thinking that 
any very great thing can be made of it, as little 
as the plowman expects to be lord of the 
manor, and to own the horses, lands, and com- 
forts of the proprietor. He begins with the idea 
that if he is careful, diligent, and favored by 
circumstances, life may be pleasant. He has a 
prospect of a decent, comfortable livelihood, or, 
at the best, of a good-going business, with margin 
of leisure for friendly intercourse, the reading of 
pleasant literature, and soon. He is confident 
he will marry happily, and live and see good days. 
In other words, he has extremely modest expec 
tations of what life can do for him ; has no soaring 
anticipations of “the ampler aether, the deviner 
air,” does not recognize his own capacity nor 
the size he may grow to, but, like the child for 
whom the world can do no more if he is promised 
some favorite toy, fancies that no better thing 
can come to him than houses, lands, wife and 
children, friendships and prosperity. Or if he 
: once had visitings of a higher, ampler hope, and 
“seemed ta see that round and beyond the suc- 
cesses of business and the common pleasures of 


86 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


life there lay a limitless ocean of feeling and of 
thought,—worlds upon worlds, like the starry 
unfathomable firmament, in which the soul 
might find expanse and joy forever,—these 
visions have been wiped out by the coarse 
hand of some early sin, or have been worn from 
the surface of the mind by the hard traffic of the 
world ; and now what the shriveled creature 
seeks is possibly but the accomplishment of a 
daily routine, possibly the attainment of some 
poor ambition, or the wreaking of a low revenge, 
or triumph over a rival who has defeated him, or 
possibly not even anything so definite as that. 
He had a vision of a life which might fulfil high 
aims, which might be ennobled and _ glorified 
throughout by true and pervading fellowship 
with God, he once was confident that what the 
human imagination could conceive of good, that, © 
and far more than that, was possible to the 
human nature, and to every man who had it; 
but that bright vision has passed as the morning, — 
all aglow with light and freshness, is quenched in 
rain and cloud and gloomy wretchedness. 

This, then, is in point of fact the condition of 
many a man as he passes through life—he has 
no conception of the blessedness that awaits him, 
he has as little hope of any supreme and com-— 
plete felicity as the man of the parable had any 
expectation of lighting upon a hid treasure. We 
only think of what we can make of life, not of the ; 


t 
! 
; 


THE HID TREASURE. 87 


wealth God has laid in our path. But suddenly 


_ our steps are arrested ; circumstances that seem 
_ purely accidental break down the partition that 


has hemmed us in to time, and we see that 
eternity is ours. We thought we had a house, 
1oo acres of land, 41000 well invested, and we 
find we have God. We were comforting our- 


selves with the prospect of increased salary, of 


ampler comforts and advantages, and a voice 
comes ringing through our soul, “ a// things are 
yours, for ye are Christ’s and Christ is God’s.” 
flow it is that the eyes are now opened to this 
treasure, we can as little tell as the plowman 
who has driven his slow steers over that same 
field since first he could guide the plow but 
has never till this day seen the treasure. A few 
words casually dropped, a sentence read in an 
idle moment, some break in our prosperous 
course, some pause which allows the mind to 
wander in unaccustomed directions,—one cannot 
say what is insufficient to bring the wandering 
and empty soul to a settled possession of the 
kingdom of heaven, for the treasure seems to be 
his before he looks for it, before he feels his need 
of it, before has taken thought or steps about it. 
This morning he was content with what a man 
can have outside of God’s kingdom : this evening 
everything outside that kingdom has lost its 
value and is as nothing. The man who is lost in 
mist on a wild hill thinks himself exceptionally 


$3 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 





well off if he can find a sheepfold to give him 
shelter, and is thankful if he can see two steps 
before him and can avoid the precipice; but sud. 
denly the sun shines out, the mist lifts, and he 
sees before him a boundless prospect, bright 
placid dwellings of men, and his path leading 
down to the shining valley with all its stir of life, 
and now what comforted and sufficed him before 
is all forgotten. 

You will not fail in passing to draw the infer. 
ence from this presentation of the manner of 
finding the kingdom, that conversions which 
have taken place quite unexpectedly and with ~ 
great ease on the part of the converted person, - 
need not therefore be insufficient and hollow. 


. 


We are very apt to think that because the king- 
dom of heaven is so great a treasure a man should — 
spend much labor in attaining it—that as the 
acceptance of Christ is the most important attain-— 
ment a man can make, there ought to be some - 
proportionate effort and expectancy on his part 
—that so great a treasure is not to be made over 
to one who is not caring for it or thinking of it. 
But this parable shows us that there may be a_ 
finding without any previous seeking, and that 
the essential thing is, not whether a man has 
been seeking, and how long, and how earnestly - 
—no, but whether a man has found. The man — 
in the parable would not have found more in~ 


that spot had he been seeking more and seeking © 


: 
| 


THE HID TREASURE. 89 






| it elsewhere all his days; the buried money was 
/ not accumulating interest while he was spending 
years in the search. The very same treasure 
_ may be found by the man who has grown gray 
in the quest of treasure, and by the child who 
plays in the field; by the alchemist who has 
spent his life in exantining the boasted tests for 
finding treasure, and by the laboring man who 
has never heard of such tests and does not dream 
of finding sudden wealth. The question is, Does 
a man know the value of what has turned up 
before him, and is he so in earnest as to sell all 
for it? Let us not hesitate to believe that in 
one hour some heedless person has found what 
we have all our life been seeking, if only he 
shows his appreciation of the treasure by parting 
with all for it. 

The second parable introduces us to the other, 
the higher type of man, the merchantman—the 
man who has zof moderate expectations, who re- 
fuses ever to be satisfied until he has all, who is 
always meditating new ventures, and to whom 
his present possessions are only of value as the 
means of acquiring what is yet beyond his reach. 
He sets out with the inborn conviction or in. 
stinct that there zs something worth seeking, 
worth the labor and the search of a life, some- 
thing which will abundantly repay us, and to 
which we can wholly, freely, and eternally give 
ourselves up, and on which we shall delight to 


go THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


spend our whole strength, capabilities, and life. 
He refuses to be satisfied with the moderate, often 
interrupted and often quenched joys of this tife. 
He considers physical health, the respect of his 
fellow-men, a good education, good social posi- 
tion, and so forth, as all goodly pearls, but he is 
not going to sit down satisfied with these things 
if there is anything better to be had. He refuses 
to have anything short of the best. He goes on 
from one acquirement to another. Money is 
good, he at first thinks, but knowledge is better. 
He parts with the one to get the other. Friend- 
ship is good, but love is better, and he cannot 
satisfy himself with the one, but must also have 
the other. The respect of his fellows is good, but 
self-respect and a pure conscience are better. 
Human love is a goodly pearl, but this only 
quickens him to crave insatiably for the love of 
God. He must always have what is beyond and 
best. He refuses to believe that God has created 
us to be partially satisfied, happy at intervals, 
content with effort, de/zeving ourselves blessed, 
disguising the reality of our condition by the aid 
of fancy, or fleeing from it on the wings of hope, 
but to be partakers of His own blessedness, and 
to enjoy eternally the sufficiency of Him in whom 
are all things. 

This spirit of expectation is encouraged by 
the parable. It seems to say to us, Covet ear- 
nestlythe best gifts. Never make up your mind 


THE HID TREASURE. cep! 


merely to endure or merely to be resigned. Test 


what you have, and if it do not satisfy you 


wholly, seek for something better. It is not for 
you who have a God, a God of infinite resource 
and of infinite love, to accustom yourselves to 
merely negative blessings and doubtful, limited 
conditions. You are to start with the belief that 
you are not made for final disappointment, nor to 
rest content with something less than you once 
hoped for or can now conceive, but that there is 
somewhere, and attainable by you, the most un- 
challengeable felicity—that there does exist a per- 
fect condition, a pearl of great price, and that 
there is but a question of the way to it, a question 
of search. You are to start with this belief, and 
you are to hold toit to the end. Under no com- 
pulsion or enticement, in the face of no disap- 
pointment, give up this persuasion that goodly 
pearls are to be had, and to be had by you, that 
into your life and soul the full sense of ample pos- 
session is one day to enter. When you come up 
from a breathless eager search like the pearl-diver, 
spent and bleeding, and with your hands filled only 
with mud or worthless shells; or when, like the 
merchant, you have ventured your all, and are re- 
duced to beggary and thrown back to the very be- 
ginning, the great hope of your life being taken 
from you ; when all your days seem to have been 
wasted in fruitless search; when every feeling 
within you rises up in mutiny against you, and 


92 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


like an ignorant crew scorns your adventure, and 
would put about and run with the wind back from 
the new world you seek, put them down ; you have 
certainty on your side, simple, sheer certainty, 
for “he that seeketh, jindeth.” 

The important point in these parables is that 
which is common to both. The teaching which 
our Lord desires to convey by their means regards 
the incomparable value of the kingdom of heaven, 
and the readiness with which one who perceives 
its value will give up all for it. He wishes us to 
consider the alacrity, gladness, and assurance with 
which one who apprehends the value of the 
kingdom will and should put aside everything 
which prevents him from making it his own. It 
is the usual, universal, mercantile feeling. The 
merchant does not part with his other possessions 
reluctantly when he wishes to obtain some better 
possession ; he longs to get rid of them; he goes 
into the investment about which he has satisfied 
himself with thorough good will; he clears out as 
fast as he can from every other investment, and 
endeavors to realize wherever he can that he may 
have his means free for this better and more pro- 
ductive venture. People who do not know its 
value may think the man mad selling out at low 
prices, at unsuitable times, at a loss; but he knows 
what he is doing. I don’t care what I lose, he 
says to himself, for if I can only get that field I 
shall have infinite compensation for my losses. 


THE HID TREASURE. 93 


As soon as he has made up his mind that there zs 
a treasure in thie field, he is filled with tremulous, 
sleepless eagerness, till he makes it hisown. Day 
and night his heart is there and his thoughts. 
His dreams are full of visions of possession, or of 
heart-breaking failure. His waking hours are 
nervously agitated by fears and schemings. He 
always finds that his road home lies past the 
longed-for property. He is jealous of the very 
birds that hover over it. The world is ful! of 
stories, and every day adds to the stock of stories 
that display the ingenuity, craft, perseverance, 
consuming zeal, spent in winning the bit of ground 
that is coveted. No labor is grudged, no sac- 
rifice is shrunk from, no present poverty is a trial 
if it brings the coveted property nearer. 

But is this a similitude for the kingdom of 
heaven? Is it not rather a picture of what ought 
to be than of what is? What we commonly find 
is that the kingdom of heaven is not so esteemed. 
We see men hesitating to part with anything for 
it, looking at it as a sad alternative, asa resort to 
which they must perhaps betake themselves when 
too old to enjoy life any longer, as what they may 
have to come to when all the real joy and intensity 
of life are gone, but not as that on which life itself 
can best be spent. Entrance into the kingdom of 
heaven is looked upon much as entrance into the 
fortified town is viewed by the rural population. 
It may be necessary in time of danger, but they 


94 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


will think with longing of the fields and home- 
steads they must abandon; it is by constraint, 
not from love, that they make the change. In 
short, it is plain that men generally do not reckon 
the kingdom of heaven to be of such value that 
they sacrifice everything else for its sake. And 
it is of supreme importance that we should clearly 
see the grounds on which we base our confidence 
that we ourselves are exceptions to the general 
rule, if we have such a confidence. Have we 
really shown any of that mercantile eagerness 
which the parable speaks of ? Have we in any 
way shown that the kingdom of heaven is first in 
our thoughts? What meaning has this “selling 
of all’’ in our life ? 

For it is to be observed that there always is 
this selling wherever the kingdom is won. We 
have it not at all unless we have given all for 
it. It is like a choice between living in the 
town orin the country. We know we cannot do 
both, and in order to secure the advantages of 
the one kind of life we must give up those of the 
other. So, living for ourselves prevents us from 
living for God, and we cannot do the one without 
wholly giving up the other. If you value the 
kingdom of God more than all else, you will 
eagerly give up everything that prevents your 
winning it; but no mere pretended esteem for it 
will prompt you to make the needful sacrifices, or 
will actually give you possession. If you do not 


THE HID TREASURE. 95 


really desire the kingdom more than aught else, 
then you have not found it. A feigned desire 
does not move us to obtain anything. Itis what 
you really love that you spend thought and effort 
and money upon, not what you know you ought 
to love, and are trying to persuade yourself tolove. 

In conclusion, this parable lets fall these two 
words of warning—1. Make your calculations, and 
act accordingly. If you think the world will pay 
you better than Christ, then serve it ; give yourself 
heartily and without compunction to it. Do not 
be so weak as to allow thoughts of things eternal 
and a spiritual world you have forsaken to haunt 
you and spoil your enjoyment. Make your choice 
and act upon it. If there is no better pearl, no 
richer treasure than what you can win by devotion 
to business and living for yourself, then by all 
means choose that, and make the most of it. But 
if you think that Christ was right, if you foresee 
that what is outside His kingdom must perish, and 
that He has gathered within it all that is worthy, 
all that is enduring, all that is as it ought to be, 
if you know that you are not and can never be 
blessed outside that kingdom, then let the reason- 
ableness and remonstrance of this parable move 
you to show some eagerness in winning that great 
treasure. Make your choice and act upon it. 
Let your mind dwell on the objects Christ has 
in view till you become enamored of them, and 
till they alone draw you and command your 


96 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


effort. Strive to shake off the pitiful avarice, the 
timorous anxieties, the cowardly self-seeking, the 
low, earthly, stupid aims of the man who serves 
the world, and let the Spirit of Christ draw you 
into fellowship with His aims, and give you a 
place in His kingdom. 

2. If you have this treasure, do not murmur at 
the price you have paid for it. If you have to 
forego earthly advancement, if you are inwardly 
constrained to part with money which might have 
brought many comforts, if you have been drawn 
to do things which are miscontrued and which 
make you feel awkward with your friends, if self 
asserts itself again and again, and claims pleasure 
and gain and gratification of various kinds, do not 
murmur at what the kingdom is costing you, but 
rather count over your treasure, and see how much 
more you have than you have lost. Having what 
worlds cannot buy, you will surely not vex your- 
self by longing for this or that which the poorest- 
spirited slave of this world can easily obtain. Sup- 
pose you had the offer to barter your interest in 
the kingdom for any or all of the possessions, ad- 
vantages, and pleasures you are deprived of, you 
would not do it; if, then, in your own judgment, 
and by your own deliberate choice you have the 
better portion, it is scarcely fair to bewail your- 
self as an ill-used person. Anything you have 
been required to give up for the kingdom’s sake 
was either of no real value—it was the coin which, 


THE HID TREASURE. 97 





so long as you kept it, could neither warn nor 
clothe you, and whose only use was to buy val- 
uables ; or if of real value, the relinquishment of 
it has given you what is of infinite value. 


THE NET. 
MATT. xii. 47-50. 


IN the foregoing parables of the kingdom Jesus 
has pointed out the causes of its success and 
failure, its mixed appearance in this world, its sur- 
prising growth from small beginnings, and the 
method of its extension. He now points to the 
result of all, when the great net shall be drawn to 
shore, all the influences and efforts of this life 
ended and brought to a pause; when there shall 
be “no more sea,” no fluctuation, no ebb and flow, 
no tide of good resolve and progress sucked back 
from all it had reached, and leaving a foul and 
slimy beach; especially no mingling of bad and 
good in an obscure and confusing element; but 
decision and separation, a deliberate sitting down 
to see what has been made of this world by us 
all, and a summing up on that eternal shore of all 
gains and results, and every man’s aim made 
manifest by his end. 

There is obviously considerable resemblance 
between this parable of the net and the parable of 
the tares. But the one is not a mere repetition of 
the other under a different figure. Every parable 


is intended to illustrate one truth. Light may 
98 


THE NET. 99 


incidentally be shed on other points, as you can- 
not turn your eye or the light you carry on the 
object you wish to examine without seeing and 
shedding light on other things as well. Now the 
one truth which is especially enforced in the par- 
able of the tares is that it is dangerous in the ex- 
treme to attempt in this present time to separate 
the evil from the good in the Church: whereas 
the one truth to which the parable of the net gives 
prominence is that this separation will be effected 
_ by and by in its own suitable time. No doubt 
this future separation appears in the parable of 
the tares also, but in that parable it is introduced 
for the sake of lending emphasis to the warning 
against attempting aseparation now ; in this par- 
able of the net it is introduced with no such pur- 
pose. A weeding process might very naturally 
suggest itself, indeed always does suggest itself, 
to one looking over a hedge at a dirty field; but 
no one watching the drawing of a net would dream 
of plunging in to throw out worthless fish. Let 
the net be drawn ; then, as a matter of course, the 
separation will be made. The value of the take, 
which cannot yet be estimated, will be ascertained 
by and by. The whole results of the work of 
Christ in the world will then but not sooner be 
known. 

Another point of distinction between the two 
parables is this, that while in the one parable the 
springing of tares among the good corn is ascribed 


100 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to the design of an enemy, in the other the mix- 
ture of good and bad in the net is rather exhibited 
as necessarily resulting from the nature of the 
case. In hunting, aman can make his choice and 
pick out the finest of the herd, letting the rest 
go; but in fishing with a net no such selection is 
possible; all must be drawn to shore that happens 
to have been embraced within the sweep of the 
net. So in sending out His servants to invite 
men to the kingdom, our Lord did not name in- 
dividuals to whom they were to go, and who 
should, from first to last, prove themselves 
obedient to the word; He did not even name 
classes of persons or races with whom they would 
be sure to find success, but He told them to go 
into all the world and invite all men without dis- 
tinction. The preachers of the kingdom have no 
powers to make selections for God; and to say of 
one that he will be, and of another that he will 
never be valuable to God. They are to cast the 
net so as to embrace all, and leave the determina- 
tion of what is bad and what is good to the end. 

Before endeavoring to extract from the parable 
its direct teaching, one cannot fail to notice some 
more general ideas suggested by the figure used. 
We are, for example, reminded that we are all 
advancing through life towards its final issue. 
Our condition in this respect bears a close resem- 
blance to fish enclosed ina net. You have seen 
men dragging a river, fixing one end of the net, 


THE NET. IoI 


taking the other across the whole stream, and 
then fetching a wide compass, and enclosing in 
their net everything dead or alive, bad or good, 
from surface to bottom. Or you have seen the 
same thing done in the sea, one net enclosing 
quite a lake within itself, and gradually as it closes 
round the fish, and they find that it is sunk to the 
sand and floated to the crest of the wave, you 
have pitied their wild efforts to escape, and seen 
how sure a barrier these imperceptible meshes 
are. At first, while the net is wide, they frisk and 
leap and seem free, but soon they discover that 
their advance is but in one direction, and when 
they halt they feel the pressure of the net. So 
is it with ourselves—we must go on, we cannot 
break through into the past, we cannot ever again 
be at the same distance from the shore as we were 
last year, yesterday, now. Yesterday, however 
delightful, you cannot live twice; eternity, how- 
ever distasteful, you are certainly going on to. 
This day you have less space and scope than ever 
you had before, and every hour you spend, every 
action you do, every pleasure you enjoy makes 
this little space less. You cannot make time stand 
still till you shall resolve how to spend it. You 
cannot bring your life to a pause while you make 
experiments as to the best mode of living. The 
years you spend ill, you cannot receive again to 
spend well, the years spent in indecision, in doubt, 
in selfish seclusion ave spent, and cannot now be 


102 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


filled with service of God and profit to your 
fellows. Your lifetime you have but once, and 
each hour of it but once; and as remorselessly as 
the last night of the convicted criminal is beat 
out and brings round the morning that is to look 
upon his death, so are your lives running steadily 
out, never faster when you long for to-morrow, 
never slower when you fear it, but ever with the 
same measured and certain advance. Do what 
you will, make what plans you will, settle your- 
self as fixedly in this life as you will, you are pass- 
ing through and out of it, and shall one day look on 
it as all past—forever past. By no will of our 
own have we come into this life, but here we find 
ourselves and the net fallen behind us, so that we 
must accept all the responsibilities of human life, 
and go on to meet all its consequences. 

Besides enclosure and inevitable passing on to 
a termination, the net suggests the idea of en- 
tanglement. Looking at fish in a net you see 
many that are not swimming freely, but are 
caught in the meshes and dragged on. The ex- 
perience of some persons interprets this to them. 
While all of us are drawing on together towards 
eternity there are some who feel daily the pres- 
sureofthenet. They have got into circumstances 
which they would fain be out of but cannot. 
Their position is not altogether of their own 
choosing, and they discharge its duties because 
they must, not because they would. At some 


THE NET. 103 


former period they were too careless, or short- 
sighted, or irresolute; they exercised too little 
their right to determine their own course, and they 
now suffer the bondage consequent on this neglect. 
If the conduct required of you by the position 
or connection into which you have come be dis- 
approved by your conscience, then you must 
somehow break through and escape, else your 
soul will suffer detriment, and that in you which 
was good when first you were entangled will be 
landed broken, bruised, and useless. But if the 
conduct required be only disagreeable and humil- 
iating and not sinful, you may have to adjust 
yourself to your circumstances. Do not tossand 
struggle in the net, but quietly set yourself to 
make the most of the condition you have unfortu- 
nately brought yourself into. It may now be 
your duty to continue in a position it was not 
your duty originally to enter. A wrong choice 
may have brought you to aright thing. Do not, 
therefore, allow any feeling of the awkwardness, 
restrictions, unsuitableness, or painfulness of your 
position, nor any reflections on the folly that 
brought you into it, to fret you into uselessness. 
Just because it seems in so many ways unsuitable, 
it may call out deeper qualities in you, a patience 
which otherwise might have been undeveloped, 
a knowledge of God and man, a meekness and 
strength, which enlarge and mature your spirit. 
Under very strange influences and forces are 


104 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


we passing onwards; by hopesand ambitions, by 
sickness and watching, by anguish and mirth, by 
the forlorn remembrance of a happy past and 
the sad forecasting of the future, by occupations 
that hurry us on from day today, and by longings 
that abide with us through life and are never 
satisfied. And often we would fain escape from 
the gentle compulsion by which God draws us to 
our end, and have to remind ourselves that how- 
ever entangled and tied up we are, and however 
prevented from our own ways and directions, 
this present time is after all but the drawing of 
the net and not the time of our use; that though 
now debarred from many pursuits we think we 
might be useful in, and hurried past enjoyments 
that delight us, we are passing to a shore where 
there is room and time enough forthe fulfilment 
of every human purpose and the exercise of every 
human faculty ; that after all our sins and follies, 
after all our pains and anxieties and difficulties, 
there does most surely come the kingdom of heav- 
en and its glorious liberty. Here we quickly wax 
old, our freedom of choice and liberty of action 
are quickly taken from us, we stretch forth our 
hands and another girds us and carries us whither 
we would not; but there our youth shall be re- 
newed with all its freedom from care, its spring 
and energy, its fresh views of truth, its boldness 
to live and see good days, its purpose for the life 
that lies before it unsullied ; and it shall be again 


THE NET. 105 


as when “ thou wast young and girdedst thyself 
-and walkedst whither thou wouldest.” 

But these are not the points emphasized in the 
parable. The parable sets the present mixture of 
good and bad in the kingdom of heaven or in the 
Church over against the eventual separation. 

1. First then, we have the truth that the net 
gathers “ of every kind.” This is the first thing 
that strikes one looking at a net drawn ashore— 
the confused mass of dead and living rubbish and 
prize. Shells, mud, starfish, salt-smelling weed, 
useless refuse of all kinds, are mingled with the 
fresh and wholesome fish that lie gasping and 
floundering in the net. Of the bad thereis every 
kind of thing that can spoil the net and injure its 
contents; and of the good there is every kind, 
small and great, coarse and fine. And until the 
net is fairly landed it isimpossible to say whether 
the weight is to be rejoiced in or not. This is 
set before us as a picture of the Church of Christ 
as itnow is. It embraces every variety of charac- 
ter. At one time we are tempted to think that 
the mass of professing Christians is but so much 
dead weight; at other times we measure the 
success of the gospel by the mere numbers brought 
within the Church. The truth is, we cannot yet 
say much about the success of the gospel. Oc- 
casionally indeed there may be a gleam through 
the water that gives assurance ofa large and fine 
fish : there may be deeds done which draw the eye 


106 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


of every one, and unmistakably prove that in the 
Church there are men after God’s own heart. We 
feel that of some men the character and quality 
are already ascertained, and that it needs no day 
of separation to tellus their worth. But there 
remains a vast mass about which we can say 
little ; nay, we know that in the Church there are 
foul, lumpish, poisonous creatures. This is what 
our Lord anticipated, that while His Church 
would attract men whom God would gather to 
Him with delight as being of His own spirit, 
there would also be drawn to it a number of 
wretched creatures who would go through life 
trying to hide from themselves that they love the 
world much more than God, and who must in the 
end be thrown aside as fit for no good purpose, 
as so much useless rubbish. 

This mixture arises from the manner in which 
the kingdom of heaven is proclaimed among 
men. It is not proclaimed by addressing private 
messages to selected and approved individuals, 
but publicly to all. And it is so proclaimed be- 
cause it is for men generally and not for any 
special kind or class, and because God “would 
have all men to be saved.” The recruiting 
sergeant watches for likely men and singles them 
out from the crowd ; but the kingdom of heaven 
opens its gates to all, because it has that which 
appeals to humanity at large, and can make use 
of every kind of man who honestly attaches him- 


THE NET. 107 






self to it. Our freedom of choice is left absolutely 
uncontrolled so far as the outward offer of the 
ospel goes ; it is not even biassed by any knowl- 
edge on our part that we are considered specially 
suitable for the work God has to do. Christ’s 
kingdom gathers in not only those in whom there 
is a natural leaning towards a devout life, or 
those who are of a susceptible temperament, or 
those who are attracted by a life of self-sacrifice, 
but it gathers in “of every kind.” You really can- 
not say who among your friends is most likely to 
become a Christian, because men become Chris- 
tians not from any apparent predisposition, not 
because religion suits their idiosyncrasy, their in- 
dividual mood and special tastes, but because the 
kingdom of heaven satisfies human wants which 
are as common to the race as hunger and thirst. 
But the kingdom being thus open to all, many 
enter it for the sake of some of its advantages, 
while they remain at heart disloyal, and are never 
carried out of themselves by a sense of its glory, 
and are alien to that great movement for the last- 
ing good of men which the kingdom truly is. 
They have an external present attachment to the 
kingdom, but they do not belong to it and are 
not in it heart and soul. 

But this mixture is at length to give place. 
In the net, while we are in this world, all dis- 
tinctions seem to be made light of; in the end, 
on the shore, a final and real distinction is to be 


108 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


exhibited and acted on. All are to pass throug} 
the hands of skilled judgment. The angels seve 
the wicked from among the just, so that the jus} 
alone are left inthe net. The purpose of the net 
of the draught, of the whole ongoing of this worl¢ 
is at length seen to have been for the sake of the 
just. Much bulkier, weightier, noisier, brighter 
colored, more curious things are drawn up, but 
these are cast aside summarily—it was not te 
secure these the net was drawn. The fishermen, 
were not mere naturalists dragging for what is 
curious and rare; not mere idlers fishing for sport 
and caring little for the wse of the result ; not mere 
children amazed and delighted with every strange 
or huge thing they land ; but they have cast the 
net for a purpose, and whatever is not suitable 
for this purpose is refuse and rubbish to them. 
The huge creature that has been a terror to the 
deep, the lovely sea plant that has waved its 
fruitless head in the garden of the sea—these are 
not twice looked at by the fishermen. They are 
acting on an understanding that the net was drawn 
for a purpose. 

And so it shall be in the end of the world. 
The exd is not a mere running down of the 
machinery that keeps the world going, it is not 
a mere exhaustion of the life that keeps us all 
alive, it is not a hap-hazard cutting of the thread, 
it is a conclusion, coming as truly in its own fit 
day and order, as much in the fulness of time and 


THE NET. 109 
















cause things are ripe for it, as the birth of 
hrist came. It is the time of the gathering up 
all things to completion, when the few last 
nishing strokes are given to the work, that 
suddenly show the connection of things which 
emed widely separate, and reveal at once the 
urpose and meaning of the whole. Men will 
en understand, what now scarcely one can con- 
tantly believe, that it is God’s purpose that is 
ilently being accomplished, and that it is useful- 
ess to Him that is the final standard of value. 

The distinction which finally separates men 
to two classes must be real and profound. It 
here said to be our value to God. Are we use- 
ss to Him, or can He make us serve any good 
urpose ? Have we become so wholly demoralized 
y aselfish, limited life, that we cannot cherish 
y cordial desire for the common good, or enter 
into sympathy with purposes that donot promise 
rofit or pleasure to ourselves? You have some 
idea what the purposes of God are ; you see these 
purposes in the life and death of Christ; you 
know that in God’s purposes that which contrib- 
utes to the elevation of character takes prece- 
dence of what merely secures outward comfort or 
present advantage ; you recognize that His Spirit 
delights in deeds of mercy, of self-sacrifice, of holy 
service—have you, then, such qualities as would 
be helpful in carrying out such purposes ? are you 
already influential in society for good, helpful in 


IIo THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


extirpating vice and crime, and in alleviating the 
wretchedness of disease and poverty? do your 
sympathies and your thoughts run much towards 
such an expenditure of your energies? have you 
the first requisite of His servants, such a partici. 
pation in His love for men, and such a zeal fot 
the advancement of the raceas wither within you 
all isolating and debasing selfishness? 

The fish taken in the net are disposed of by 
the fishermen, and are in their hands without 
choice or motion. A minute before they were 
swimming hither and thither, moving themselves 
by their own energies; now they are dealt with 
according to a judgment not their own. The 
situation is not more novel to the fishes than it 
will be tous. Here in this world we are con- 
scious of a power to choose our own destiny, to 
change our character, and become different from 
what we are. We are not yet all we ought to 
be, but we can discard evil habits, repress base 
motives, and become at length suitable for God’s 
work, harmonious with Him through all our 
being. Sowe flatter ourselves. But there comes 
a time, when, whatever we are, that we shall for- 
ever be; when we shall be, as it were, passive 
in the grip of destiny, disposed of by it, and un- 
able to resist or alter it; when we shall find that 
the time for choosing is past, and that we must 
accept and abide by the consequences of our past 
choices; when for us the irrevocable word shall 


THE NET. II! 


have gone forth, “He that is filthy, let him be 
filthy still; and he that is holy, let him be holy 
still.” 

Amidst the sudden revolutions of thought and 
revulsion of feeling, amidst the utter discomfiture 
of many a hope on that day when the net is drawn 
and we are all suddenly thrown out on the eternal 
shore, will your hope not fail you? As you antici- 
pate the hand that is to separate the good from 
the bad, do you rejoice that a penetrating eye and 
an unerring wisdom will guide it? do you rejoice 
that it is God who is coming to judge the 
world in righteousness, and that no mistake can 
be made, no superficial distinction hide the real 
one? 

It is possible some one may defend himself 
against the parable by saying, “I will not alarm 
myself by judging of my destiny by my own 
qualities; Iam trusting to Christ.’’ But precisely 
in so far as you are trusting to Christ, you have 
those qualities which the final judgment will 
require you to show. “If any man hath not 
the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His.” You are 
useful to God in so far as you have the Spirit of 
Christ. Plainly the criterion given by the par- 
able is the only sufficient criterion by which men 
can be judged as they issue from this life. Are 
they in such sympathy with God as to be capable 
of entering into His work and waysin the future, 
or haye they only cultivated habits and qualities 


II2 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


which served them fora life that is now past? 
Only by what we are, can we be finally judged 
not by what we believe, but by what our beli 
has made us; not by what we profess, not b 
what we know, but by the results in character 
what we have professed and known. In the fin 
judgment, we shall not be required to assert that 
we are converted persons, or that we are trusting 
in Christ; we shall not be required to assert any- 
thing; but our future shall be determined by our 
actual fitness for it. Fitness for carrying on 
God’s work in the future, fitness for helping fors 
ward the cause of humanity in the future, fitness 
for living in and finding our joy in the future 
which Christ’s Spirit is to rule, we must have if 
we are to enter that future. Get the fitness how 
you may, it is this you must have. If you can 
get it by some other means than by adherence to 
Christ and the reception of His Spirit, use that 
means, but this fitness you must have. 

And I think any one who seriously accepts 
this as the real outlook for us men will feel that 
he cannot do better than go to school to Christ 
that he may acquire not only a perception of 
what this fitness is, but that genuine humility 
and absorption in great and eternal aims which 
are its prime requisites. Apart from Christ, men 
may be good handicraftsmen, they may be gifted 
with genius that delights and aids mankind and 
beautifies life, they may see clearly what consti- 


THE NET. 113 


tutes civil prosperity, in one way or other they 
may materially help forward the common cause ; 
but if after all they are not in sympathy with the 
purpose of the king who rules and heads the for- 
ward movement, if their motives in using their 
gifts are still selfish, it can never be said to them, 
“ Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” His joy 
is a joy they are not prepared to share, if they 
have sought their own advantage and not with 
Him sacrificed themselves to the common good. 
It is impossible to say who are helping and who are 
hindering the cause of Christ; and happily it is 
not our part to judge. The aims and ideas which 
Christ introduced to the minds of men have so 
permeated society that no one can grow up ina 
Christian country without coming more or less in 
contact with them. And the Spirit of Christ 
may have wrought in men in ways we are quite 
unable to trace. But it would seem as if only 
through Christ it were possible for us to come 
into that full sympathy at once with God and 
with men, which we see so clearly in His life 
and death, and which also is our salvation from 
selfish isolation and all ungodliness and _ in- 
humanity. It is serviceableness which is to de- 
termine our entrance into or exclusion from the 
future of God; or, as God does not desire service 
in which is no spirit of fellowshlp, but rather the 
intelligent and delighted co-operation of sons, it 
is ae that determines our destiny. And who 


I14 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


but Christ enables us to see what sonship is and 
to become sons? How is that tender, humble, 
sin-fearing, reverent spirit of God’s children to be > 
produced, how has it ever been produced, save 
by the acceptance of Christ as God the Son dying 
for our sin to bring us to the Father ? 





THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT; 
oR, 
THE UNFORGIVING DEBTOR. 


MATT. xviii. 23-35- 


THE occasion of this parable was a question 
put by Peter. Our Lord has once again been 
warning His disciples against that self-sufficient 
spirit which makes men quarrelsome and im- 
placable and censorious. Their ambitious tem- 
per had been again showing itself in the discus- 
sion of their favorite topic: “Who is the 
greatest in the kingdom of heaven?”’ They had 
been betraying their eagerness to be influential 
and important persons, their proneness therefore 
to despise the uninfluential and to treat with 
harshness the “ little ones” of the kingdom, those 
who were weak and erring and always needing 
forgiveness. Our Lord therefore warns them 
that the little ones rather than the great ones 
are His care, and that provision is made in His 
kingdom not for those who need no forgiveness, 
not for those who can see only the faults and 
weaknesses of others, but for those who make 
constant demands on mercy. 


But Peter, when he hears the precept that he 
115 


116 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


must gain his brother by forgiving him his tres- 
pass, foresees the very probable result, that his 
brother thus forgiven will repeat his offense, and 
puts therefore the question whether some differ- 


ent treatment ought not then to be adopted. : 


“ How often,” he says, “shall I forgive my 
brother?”’” He knew the Jewish rule: Forgive 
a first offense, forgive a second, a third—punish 
the fourth. And he seems to wish to meet at 


once the most liberal sentiments of his Master in | 


t 


2 
é 
§ 


¢ 
* 


expanding this common law to more than double ~ 


its original measure: “Shall I forgive him till 


seven times?” But this question was framed in — 


the very spirit of the old law of retaliation. By 
proposing any limit whatever to forgiveness, 
Peter showed that he still considered that to for- 
give was the exceptional thing, was to forego a 
right which must some time be reassumed, was not 
an eternal law of the kingdom but only a tentative 
measure which at any moment may be revoked ; 
that underneath the forgiveness we extend to an 
erring brother there lies a right to revenge which 


we may at any time assert. This feeling wher- © 


ever it exists shows that we are living with re- 
taliation for the law, forgiveness for the excep- 
tion. But Christ’s law is, that forgiveness shall 
be unlimited: “I say not unto seven times, but 
until seventy times seven ’’—that is to say an un- 
told number of times. Seven was with the Jews 
the number of perfection. When time has run 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 117 


through seven days, it begins again ; the circle is 
complete. So that no expression could more 
forcibly convey the impression of endless, ever- 
renewed, eternal iteration than “seventy times 
seven.” 

The parable is added to illustrate the hateful- 
ness of an unforgiving spirit. In it the Lord 
gibbets the implacabie temper of the man who 
refuses to extend to others the forgiveness he 
himself needs. His own debt of something like 
two millions sterling indicates that he occupied 
a position of trust, and had exceptional oppor- 
tunity of advancing his Lord’s interests. And 
probably the magnitude of the debt was intended 
not merely to suggest the vastness of the liabili- 
ties of all men to God, but also to hint to the 
Apostles that men so closely allied to their Lord 
as they were, might possibly incur a greater debt 
than those in an inferior position had opportunity 
of incurring. 

It may seem as if there were some inconsist- 
ency between the two parts of our Lord’s direc- 
tions regarding the treatment of an offending 
brother. In the parable and in His direct an- 
swer to Peter’s question He speaks as if the sole 
duty of an injured person were to forgive. In 
the preceding verses He speaks as if much more 
were needful, and indeed He lays down the 
principles which have ever since governed, theo- 
retically at least, ecclesiastical prosecutions. An 


118 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


injured person is not to act asa strong healthy 
minded, good-natured man is very apt to act. 
He is not to say to himself, “ What does it mat-_ 
ter that so-and-so hascalled me ‘ cheat’ or ‘liar ;"— 
my character will outlive his attacks; what harm 
has he done save to himself by circulating — 
slanders about me, or by taking me into the ex- } 
tent of a few pounds? Iam not going to dirty — ‘ 
my hands or bother my head about such a poor — 
creature.” No doubt there are slight injuries of ' 
which this is the proper treatment. To notice 
them at all would be to make them of more im- — 
portance than is wise. But this may be carried — 
too far; and it is frequently carried too far by the — 
easy-going pleasant-tempered men who are so _ 
agreeable an element in society. There are, says 
our Lord, offenses of which the proper treatment 
is to go to the offending party and remonstrate 
with him. There are few more disagreeable 
duties in life, but sometimes it isa duty. There 
are matters that come to your knowledge which 
you cannot pass by—you feel that if you do so, 
it is because of an element of cowardliness in your 
nature. Duty requires you to go to the offend- 
ing party and endeavor to bring him to repent- 
ance. 

But this treatment and all that follows it is in 
strict harmony with the injunction to forgive, for 
you are never required to forgive an impenitent 
person : but you are required—and this is, I think, 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 119 


a duty more difficult and more frequently neglect 
ed than even the duty of forgiveness—you are- 
required to do all you can to bring to repentance 
the person who has injured you. To forgive the 
man who has wronged you, when he comes hum- 
bling himself, admitting he was wrong and heartily 
begging you to forgive him, in most actual cases 
makes no great call on Christian charity: but to 
go affectionately and without a spark of vindictive 
feeling to the man who has done you a wrong, 
and strive patiently to make it as plain to him as 
it is to yourself that he has done wrong, and so 
to do this as to win your brother—this seems to 
be about the highest reach of Christian virtue we 
are likely to meet in this present world. 

There is another initial difficulty. Not only do 
we feel it almost impossible to forgive certain in- 
juries, but some well-instructed Christian writers 
explicitly maintain that there are injuries which 
men ought not to forgive.* One who has done 
much to elevate the tone of modern literature, 
introduces the following lines in his most celebrat- 
ed drama: 


“Oh sirs, look round you lest you be deceived, 
Forgiveness may be spoken with the tongue, 


* On this point, see the remarkable chapter on Forgiveness, in 
“Ecce Homo,” from which the thought of this paragraph is 
derived. The Author cites a modern novelist who makes one 
of his characterssay: ‘“ There are some wrongs that no one ought 
to forgive, and I shall be a villain on the day I shake that man’s 
hand.” 


120 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Forgiveness may be written with the pen, 

But think not that the parchment and mouth pardon 
Will e’er eject old hatreds from the heart. 

There’s that betwixt you been men ne’er forget 

Till they forget themselves, till all’s forgot, 

Till the deep sleep falls on them in that bed 

From which no morrow’s mischief knocks them up.” 


It might seem then as if those who knew human > 


life best agreed that there zs a limitation which 


| 
4 


must be put to forgivenesss, that there are in- — 


{ 


juries which no man can be expected to forgive or © 


can forgive, that there are circumstances in which 
this rule of Christ’s must be set aside. 

Let us test this idea by a very simple instance. 
Some of the most thoroughly Christian and wise 
headmasters have been inclined to wink at fight- 
ing among their boys, taking care that it does 
not become too frequent nor go any serious 
length. And even the most forgiving and Christ- 
like of parents is not altogether comfortable if his 
boy comes home from school and tells him that 
he was grossly insulted and struck by a boy 
somewhat bigger than himself, but that instead 
of defending himself he forgave the offender. 
Why then is the parent not quite comfortable, 
why would most parents be really more gratified 
to hear that their boy had foughta bigger boy, 
than that when struck he had turned the other 
cheek? Simply because most parents might have 
some suspicion that softness and cowardliness 
had as much to do with the turning of the other 


| 
; 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT, 121 


cheek as Christian feeling. If they had unmis- 
takable proof of their boy’s courage and man- 
liness, if they were perfectly sure that fear was 


a quite unknown feeling to their boy, they would 


delight in his having forgiven insolence and ill- 
treatment. But unfortunately fear and a craven 
spirit are so much commoner than high spirit 
moderated by Christian temper, that wherever 
gross injuries are forgiven, we are apt to ascribe 
this apparently Christian conduct to that spirit 
which is at the very antipodes from the spirit of 
Christ. The parent does not think his boy ought 
not to forgive—nay, he is sure that is the highest 
and manliest, and to many boys the most difficult 
conduct—but until he is quite sure that in a given 
case the forgiveness has sprung not from a sham 
magnanimity thrown over a sneaking and feeble 
character, he is afraid to commend it. 

So it is everywhere. There is wo limitation to 
forgiveness; no injury so gross that it ought not 
to be forgiven. But there are injuries so gross 
that when men forgive them they are sure to be 
suspected of doing so from unworthy motives. 
So little is Christian feeling in its highest reaches 
and manifestations counted on, so little is it seen 
or even understood, that when a man forgives 
one who has deeply injured him, this forgiveness 
is apt to be ascribed to what is mean, and not to 
what is Christlike in the injured party. But 
wherever, as in the case of our Lord Himself 


122 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


there is no question of the power to defeat or 


the courage to face one’s enemies, wherever for-_ 
giveness can be ascribed only to a merciful spirit, _ 
there men do admire the disposition to forgive — 


even the greatest of injuries. 

The parable is intended to enforce the teach- 
ing of our Lord regarding forgiveness by exhibit- 
ing the unreasonableness and meanness and 
danger of an unforgiving spirit. The hatefulness 
of such a spirit is emphasized by two aggravating 
features :— 

1. The unmerciful servant had himself required 
forgiveness and had just been forgiven. 

2. The debt due to him was infinitesimally 
small when compared with the debt which had 
been remitted to him. 

I. First, the man is not softened by the remis- 
sion of his own great debt. He goes straight 
from the presence of his master who had forgiven 
him all his talents, and lays violent hands on one 
of his associates who happened to owe him a few 
shillings. Having just been forgiven, he might 
have been expected to remember, with humble 
and softened feeling, that there is a better law 
than retaliation. He thought mercy a good thing 
so long as he was the object ofit. So long as he 
was in the presence of a creditor he had much to 
say of the calamity of debt, a thousand reasons to 
urge for the exercise of patience, and a thousand 
excuses for wrongdoing. Five minutes after, in 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 123 


the presence of a debtor, there is to him no law 
in the world, but harsh and hasty exaction of 
dues. He is deaf to the reasons which had filled 
his own mouth immediately before, deaf to every- 
thing which was not a promise to pay, and that 
instantly. 

This is no over-colored picture. It is over- 
colored neither as a representation of what nat- 
urally occurs in connection with pecuniary debts, 
nor as apicture of the treatment which sinners 
give to sinners like themselves. Men who begin 
to use the money which belongs to others, and 
to invest on their own account funds which 
either do not exist at all except in their own 
hopes, or which belong to others and are only 
passing through their hands, become deadened 
with surprising rapidity to all sense of the injury 
they do. If they prove bankrupt, it is much 
more their own inconvenience and loss they 
bewail than the wrong doneto others. The enor- 
mous debtor of the parable betrayed no sense of 
shame, no feeling for his lord’s loss, but only 
craven dread of slavery and personal suffering. 
No serious humility, no honest and thoughtful 
facing of the facts, no deep truthfulness have 
entered his spirit. He is ready to promise any- 
thing, if he can only escape present consequences. 

This is a true picture of the temper in which 
we sometimes crave pardon. Our iniquities over- 
take us with a throng of painful and overwhelm- 


124 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ing consequences, and in terror we cry for for- 
giveness. But the distress of our own condition 
blinds us to the wrong we have done, and no true 
humiliation enters the spirit. Deadened by long 
self-indulgence to a sense of everything but what 
directly affects himself with pleasure or pain, the 
sinner has no thought of the deeper spiritual re- 
lations of his sin. He stupidly thinks God with- 
holds punishment because he has made a foolish 
purpose of paying his dues by amending his 
ways. There is no deep contrition; no con- 
science-stricken yet joyful recognition of the 
relation he holds to God; no intense delight and 
glorying in a God capable of passing by such 
transgressions as his; no rising of the spirit to 
new attachments and new ideas; no “truth in 
the inward parts,’ but only a desire to escape, 
as selfish and as soft as was the desire to sin. 

But the forgiving love of God, if it does not 
humble, hardens us. To carry an unhumbled, 
self-regarding spirit through such an experience 
gives the finishing touch to a dehumanizing self- 
ishness. We have a key here to the conduct of 
those religious persons who act as if they meant 
to make up for their own deficiencies by charg- 
ing others with theirs; as if they supposed that 
the violent and unrelenting condemnation of 
those who offend them were the fittest exercise 
of their privilege as persons forgiven of God. 
The little taste of religion they have had seems 


, 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 125 


to have soured their temper and hardened their 
heart. They would be more human had they no 
religion at all. Just as this man proposes to 
build up his credit again by scrupulously exact- 
ing every farthing that others owe him, so do 
those who have not been thoroughly humbled by 
God’s forgiveness show their zeal in exposing and 
reproving the faults of others. So far from being 
softened and enlarged in spirit by their own ex- 
perience of mercy, they grow more punctilious 
in their exactions, more cruel and stiff in their 
demeanor. 

2. Second, the petty amount of the debt he 
exacts is set over against the enormity of that 
which had been remitted to himself. You might 
expect that a man who had been forgiven talents 
would have no heart to exact pence. You would 
suppose that one whose eye had been fixed ona 
kingdom’s revenue would not know how to count 
farthings. There is something almost incredibly 
mean as well as savage in this man’s quick re- 
membrance of the few pence due to himself, while 
he so easily dismisses from his mind the ten 
thousand talents due by him. But our incredu- 
lity gives way as we look at the facts which under- 
lie the parable, and measure the debt we owe to 
God with the peccadilloes committed against our- 
selves, and which we are so slow to forget. 

What are the offenses which we feel it impos- 
sible to forgive, and which alienate us from one 


126 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


another? If other men do not serve us well and 
fulfil our expectations; if they do not throw 
themselves heartily into our work and perfectly 
accomplish what we entrusted to them, we have 
no forgiveness forthem ; they must go. Or some 
one has been so presumptuous as to differ from 
us, and has opposed the propagation of our opin- 
ions on some political, or theological, or practical 
matter. Or men patronize us, and make us feel 
insignificant ; or they tell some damaging story 
about us; or they win the prize that we worked 
for, or succeed in getting possession of a little 
bit of property we coveted. Orhas even some 
grand exceptional injury been done you? has 
your whole life been darkened and altered and 
obstructed by the injustice or neglect or selfish- 
ness of some one, whose influence circumstances 
compel you to submit to? Is there some one 
whom you cannot think of but with a tumult in 
the blood and a passionate emotion? Take the 
injury that is most difficult for you to forgive, 
and measure it with that for which you yourself 
need to ask forgiveness of God, and say whether 
you ought to be implacable and resolved on 
revenge. 

I suppose there are few persons who have not 
often sat and wondered why it is that they feel | 
so little sense of obligation to God, and so little 
shame that their sins are sins against Him. It 
is so difficult for us to have any genuine shame 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 127 


before God, though so easy to feel it before men, 
that we are sometimes tempted to fancy that a 
sense of sin must after all be a fictitious feeling, 
and not a feeling which increases in intensity 
with soundness of mind and clearness of mental 
vision. Several considerations, however, combine 
to show that the representation given in the par- 
able fairly apportions the comparative guilt of 
sinning against God and sinning against man. 
All our sins directly or indirectly touch God, 
while only a few touch any individual on earth. 
In the injuries done to yourself by other men you 
may be able to detect more malice, more intention 
to wound and injure than has entered into any 
sin you have committed against God. But then, 
what are the obligations which bind any man to 
your service compared with the obligations which 
bind you to God? For whom have you done, or 
for whom can you do, any portion of that which 
God daily does for you? Debt is measured by 
obligation. There can be no debt where there 
has been no obligation. We are not equally 
bound to all. We are not bound to educate an- 
other man’s children as we are bound to educate 
our own. Wecan have no debt to a shopkeeper 
from whom we have received nothing. And our 
debt to God is enormous because we have received 
from Him benefits deep as life itself, and are 
bound to Him in ways as varied as the manifest- 
ations of that life. We cannot sin against one 


128 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


another as we can sin against God. Just as the 
servant of the parable, in dealing with his lord, 
had intromissions with larger sums than he could 
touch in dealing with a fellow-servant, so in deal- 
ing with God we are lifted to relations unique in 
kind and of surpassing sacredness, and are involved 
in responsibilites of wider and deeper consequence 
than any that would otherwise attach to our life. 

There ought, then, to be some proportion be- 
tween our perception of the wrong done us and 
the wrong we do. If we so keenly feel the prick 
of a needle when inflicted on ourselves, we may 
be expected to consider with some compunction 
the gaping wounds we inflict on another. Is 
our shame for sin against God as intense and real 
as the blaze of indignation, or is it continuous and 
persistent as the slow-burning hate which an 
injury done to ourselves begets? In speaking of 
those who defraud or injure us we express our 
opinion of what wrong-doing deserves. Is our 
judgment as explicit, our feeling as strongly ex- 
pressed in regard to our own transgressions? As 
strongly? But they ought to be a thousand 
times more vehement; there should be against 
ourselves an indignation such as no enemy of ours 
could excite against himself though his offenses 
were many times aggravated. And what after 
all, is our reputation, our happiness, our property, 
that we should make much wail about injury done 
tothem? Our good name and our advancement 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 129 


in the world are no doubt much to ourselves, but 
they are of very little moment indeed to the world 
at large. 

The fate of the unmerciful servant tells us in 
the plainest language that the mere canceling of 
our guilt doesnot saveus. Ittells us that unless 
the forgiveness of God humbles us and begets 
within us atruly meek and loving spirit, we can- 
not be owned as His children. The best as- 
surance that we are ourselves forgiven is the con- 
sciousness that the very spirit of the forgiving 
God is working in our own hearts towards others, 


“*Tis not enough to weep my sins, 
Tis but one step to heaven; 
When I am kind to others, then 
I know myself forgiven.” 


“ He that revengeth shall find vengeance from 
the Lord, and He shall surely retain his sins. 
Forgive thy neighbor the hurt that he hath done 
unto thee, so shall thy sins also be forgiven when 
thou prayest. A man beareth hatred against 
another, and doth he seek pardon from the Lord ? 
He showeth no mercy to a man who is like him- 
self: and doth he ask forgiveness of his own sin?” 
(Ecclesiasticus xxviii. 1-4) “If ye forgive not 
men their trespasses neither will your heavenly 
Father forgive your trespasses.” If you are hard, 
unrelenting ; always chiding; slow to recognize 
merit, quick to observe faults; admitting no 
excuse and making no allowances; cherishing ill- 

9 


130 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


will; still feeling resentment on account of injuries 
done you ten years ago; if there are persons from 
whom you would if you could exact the uttermost 
farthing—then you have reason to fear for your 
own forgiveness. Can you humbly beseech God, 
and with tearful eyes look up to Him for pardon 
while you have your foot upon your brother’s 
neck or your hand at his throat? The very fact 
that you are proud and unbending should itself 
convince you that you have never been humbled 
before a forgiving God. The very fact that you 
can be overbearing and exacting should prompt 
you to question most seriously whether you have 
in very truth let your heart be flooded with God’s 
undeserved pardoning mercy. The very fact that 
in any relation of life you can carry yourself in 
a haughty, imperious, and unchastened manner 
should bid you ask whether in very truth you are 
at heart lowly before God as one who day by day 
needs His forbearance and pardon. Every bitter 
word you speak, every unmerciful, inconsiderate 
act you do, every relentless, cruel, exacting 
thought you have, casts suspicion on your Chris- 
tianity, and makes it seem possible that your 
Master may yet have to mete to you with your 
own measure. 

Thus then does the Lord lay down the law of 
unlimited forgiveness as a law of His kingdom. 
The kingdom or society He came to form, that 
new grouping and association of men which He 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 131 


means to be eternal, cannot be held together 
without the observance of this law. This is one 
of the essential laws of His kingdom. Men are 
to be held together and to work smoothly together 
not by external compulsion, not by a police 
agency, not by a criminal law of alarming severity 
—it seems ludicrous to speak of such forces in 
connection with an eternal and perfect society— 
but it isto be held together by the inward dis- 
position of each member of it to forgive and be 
on terms of brotherly kindness with every other 
member. 

We lose an immense deal of the power and 
practical benefit of Christ’s teaching by refusing 
to look at things from His point of view, and to 
listen as cordially to what He says of His king- 
dom as to what He says of individuals. We are 
not perhaps too much but we are too exclusively 
taken up with the saving of our own souls. We 
neglect to consider that the Bible throughout 
takes to do with the Church and people of God, 
with the kingdom, and with the individual only 
asa member of the kingdom. It is not for the 
individual alone that Christ legislates. He does 
not point out a path by which one man by him- 
self can attain to a solitary bliss; but He founds 
a kingdom, and lays down as its fundamental 
law the law of love, a law which shows us that our 
individual happiness and our individual perfection 
can only be won in fellowship with others, and by 


132 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


truly entering into the most enduring bonds with 
them. To unite usagain individually to God, our 
Lord recognizes as only half His work: to unite 
us to one another is as essential. Salvation 
consists not only in ourbeing reconciled to God, 
but also in our being reconciled to men. When 
we attach ourselves to Christ we become members 
of a society, and can no longer live an isolated life. 
We must live for the body we belong to. Until 
we catch this esprit de corps we are poor Christians. 
The man who is content if he is sure his own soul 
is safe has great cause’to believe it in danger; for 
there is no surer mark of a healthy Christian than 
his practical acknowledgment of the claims of 
other men and his interest in the kingdom to 
which he belongs. 

But how are we to attain to that thoroughly 
healthy state of spirit to which it shall be natural 
to forgive until seventy times seven? This par- 
able indicates that the most important step to- 
wards this is taken when we learn to accept God's 
forgiveness in aright spirit. The true way to a 
forgiving spirit is to be forgiven, to go back again 
and again to God, and count over our debt to 
Him. The man who thinks justly of his own 
wrong-doing has no heart to make much of the 
injuries done to himself. He always feels how 
much more he has been forgiven than he can ever 
be called upon to forgive. His soul gladdened, 
softened, and humbled by a sense of the great 


THE UNMERCIFUL SERVANT. 133 


compassion that has remitted his great debt, loses 
all power to be harsh and damnatory. 

We must therefore begin with the truth about 
ourselves. It is not required of us that we go out 
of our way to make an ostentatious display of our 
guilt, but it is requisite that we let the conviction 
of our great debt so sink into our minds that we 
shall go softly all the days of our life. It is re- 
quired of us that we discover and recognize the 
truth about ourselves, and that we abide and walk 
in the truth and not in the unreal world of our own 
self-satisfied fancy. It is required of us that 
we have a character, and that this character be 
founded on and grow up out of God’s forgiving 
grace. We need not proclaim toevery man we 
meet the reason, but we must let all men see that 
we have a reason for loving-kindness, for humility, 
for gravity, for tender consideration of others, for 
every quality that banishes hatred from earth 
and welds men closer into one community. 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 


FIRST LAST AND LAST FIRST. 
MATT. xx. 1-16. 


THE key to this parable is found in the ques- 
tion to which it was the answer, and in the cir- 
cumstances which suggested that question. A 
young man of high character and still higher as- 
pirations, but of unfortunately great wealth, had 
recognized in Jesus a teacher who in His own 
person and demeanor bore evidence that He 
understood how man could attain to the highest 
ideal. He accordingly introduced himself to our 
Lord as one who was bent upon achieving the 
highest human attainment, and who was only 
anxious to know what more could be done beyond 
what he had already accomplished. But on learn- 
ing that for him the path to perfection lay 
through the abandonment of his great posses- 
sions, he felt that this was more than he could 
do, and turned away ashamed and wretched. As 
he passed out of sight, our Lord, sympathizing 
with the severity of his temptation, turned to 
His disciples, and with His usual form of strong 
asseveration, said, “ Verily I say unto you, that a 

134 





LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 135 


rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of 
_ heaven.” 

When Peter saw how keenly the Lord appre- 
ciated the difficulty of giving up property and 
detaching oneself from familiar comforts and 
_ employments, he suggested that those who over- 
came this difficulty were peculiarly meritorious. 
“ Behold,” he says, “we have forsaken all and 
followed Thee: what shall we have therefore?” 
But in asking this question Peter betrayed pre- 
cisely that disposition which most thoroughly 
vitiates all service of Christ, the disposition to 
bargain, to work for a clearly defined reward and 
not for the sake of the work itself and in gen- 
erous trust in the justice and liberality of the 
Master. Peter had to all appearance made, so far 
as was possible in his circumstances, the very 
sacrifice which the rich young man had declined 
to make ; but if a sacrifice ismade merely for the 
sake of winning for oneself some greater gain, 
then it is no longera sacrifice but a bargain. 
Love and trust are of the essence of sacrifice. 
Peter had left his home, his boat and fishing gear, 
and all the pleasant associations of the lake: he 
had torn himself up by the roots; but if he had 
done so not from simple love of Christ which 
found its ample reward in His company, but with 
a clear understanding that he would have a good 
return in kind for all he had given up, then he 
was perhaps premature in so complacently com- 


136 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


paring himself with the rich yourg man. It is 
the motive which gives virtue to any sacrifice or 
service. The spirit which asks what compensa- 
tion is to be made for every sacrifice, is self-regard- 
ing, mercenary, greedy, not generous, trustful, 
loving: it confounds two things diametrically 
different, bargain and sacrifice. 

The Lord’s answer to Peter’s question is two- 
fold. He first assures His followers that they 
shall have ample compensation for all present loss. 
Sharing with Him in work, they shall share in His 
reward. The results He works for shall be theirs 
as well as His. But having given them this assur- 
ance, He takes occasion to rebuke the disposition 
to bargain, the somewhat craven spirit that sought 
to be quite sure it would take no harm by follow- 
ing Him. And he warns them against compar- 
ing their sacrifices and services with those of other 
men, affirming that many who, like the apostles, 
were called at the very beginning of the Lord’s 
ministry, and were first not only in point of time, 
but in eminence of service, and who might there- 
fore seem sure of a conspicuous and exceptional 
reward, will after all be found no better off than 
those whose expectations have been extremely 
meager. ‘“‘ Many shall be last that are first, and 
first that are last.” 

It was to illustrate this statement that the para- 
ble of the laborers in the vineyard was spoken. 
This is the point of its teaching to which all else 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 137 


is subordinate. The nature of the workin the 
vineyard and its exhausting toil; the unwearied 
compassion of the Lord of the vineyard, going 
out hour after hour to invite the unemployed ; 
these and all other details are but the feathers of 
the arrow helping it to fly straight to its mark ; 
but the point is, that those who were first hired 
were last paid and least paid, and this because 
the first-hired entered on their work ina bargain- 
ing spirit and merely forthe sake of winning a cal- 
culated and stipulated remuneration, whereas the 
late-hired laborers did their work in faith, not 
_knowing what they were to get, but sure they 
would not get less than they deserved. 

The parable, then, is intended to show us the 
difference between work done in a bargaining 
spirit and work done in trust ; between the reward 
given to work which in quantity may be very 
great but in motive is mercenary, and the reward 
given to work which in quantity may be very small, 
but in motiveissound. It directs attention to the 
fact that in estimating the value of work we must 
take into consideration not only the amount done 
or the time spent upon it, but the motive that 
has entered into it. It is this which God chiefly 
regards. One hour of trustful, humble service is 
of greater value to God than a lifetime of calcu- 
lating industry and self-regarding zeal. A gift that 
is reckoned by thousands of pounds; an ecclesias- 
tical endowment that makes a noise through a 


138 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


whole generation ; a busy, unflagging, obtrusive 
zeal which makes itself seen and felt throughout 
a whole land, these things make a great impres- 
sion upon men—and it is well if they do not make 
a great impression on the partiesthemselves who 
do them and prompt them inwardly to say, “‘ What 
shall we have therefor’ —but they make no im- 
pression upon God unless animated by a really 
devoted spirit. While men are applauding the 
great workers who ostentatiously wipe the sweat 
from their brows and pant so that you can hear 
them across the whole field, God is regarding an 
unnoticed worker, who feels he is doing little, 
who is ashamed that any one should see his work, 
who bitterly regrets he can do no more, who could 
not name a coin small enough to pay him, but 
who is perfectly sure that the Master he serves is 
well worth serving. It is thus that the first be- 
come last and the last first. 

That we are meant to see this difference of 
spirit in the laborers is obvious alike from the 
terms of their respective engagements, from the 
distribution of the wages, and from the temper 
shown by the last paid men. 

I. First, the parable is careful to state that 
those who were hired early in the day made an 
agreement to work for a stipulated sum. This 
sum was the usual day’s wage of the period: a 
fair wage, which of itself was sufficient induce- 
ment to work. These men were ina condition 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 139 











to make their ownterms. They ruled the market. 
|At four or five in the morning the laborers ina 
| iring market have a keen sense of their own 
value, and are in no mood to sell themselves cheap. 
| The masters and stewards have a very hard time 
of it as they are hooted from knot to knot of lusty 

















I. Ae : : 
paces, and strive in vain to pick up labor at a 


easonable figure. No man in the market at that 
Nour engages without making his own terms, with- 
out saying what So-and-so offers, without know- 
ng to a halfpenny what he will have, and strik- 
ng hands with his hirer as hisequal. The laborer 
Means to make a good thing of it for himself; if 
te does not like the look of one steward he chooses 
another, if he thinks one master’s pay too little 
Ne waits for a better offer. He is not going to 
ork all day to oblige some neighboring proprietor, 
€ is going to work to make a good wage for him- 
self. It’s hot, hard, thirsty work, but it pays. 
But in the evening the tablesare turned. The 
asters now have it all their own way. It’s no 
vonger, “ Will you give us more than So-and-so 
what will you offer?” but “We'll leave that to 
j ou, sir; supper and a bed at the most is all we 
ean expect. There’s scarcely time to get to your 
dlace, but we'll hurry and do our best, if you'll 
fave us at all.” Possibly these men were the 
Droudest in the morning, and missed their chance. 
roup after group of men has been detailed off 


140 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


at various hours, and now the shadows begin 1 
lengthen ; their pride gives place to hunger an 
anxious thoughts of the coming night. They ai 
beginning to have gloomy thoughts of lying dow 
in the darkness, with no food to refresh them, n 
roof to shelter, no promise of more work from a 
appreciative master, no pleasant talk and son 
with their comrades in the vintage. But as th 
day wears desolately away, and as now the har 
task-masters are heard on all sides beating dow 
the wages of the jaded hirelings, there rises th 
considerate voice of this good and upright house 
holder, “Go ye also into my vineyard, and what 
soever is rzght, that shall ye receive.” Inno cor 
dition to make a bargain, they most gladly trus 
themselves to one whose words have the ring @ 
truth. They go, glad to get work on any terms 
they go, not knowing what they are to get, bu 
quite sure they are in good hands. They g 
humble, trusting, and grateful; the others wen 
proud, self-confident, mercenary. 

2. Secondly, the same difference in the spiri 
in which each set of laborers had entered o1 
their work is implied in the striking scene whic 
ensued at the close of the day. Those who ha 
barely got their work begun were first paid, ant 
were paid a full day’s wage. There must, o 
course, have been a reason for this; it was no 
mere caprice, but was the result and expressio: 
of some just idea. It could not be that thes 













LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 14! 


te-hired laborers had done as much in their 
ne hour as the others in twelve; for the others, 
ose who had worked the full day, are con- 
tious of having done their work well. No hint is 
ven that they were less skilful or less zealous 
aan the late-hired men. We are thrown back, 
aerefore, for the explanation on the hint given 
1 the hiring, namely, that those who wrought 
nerely for the sake of pay received the pay they 
doked for, while they who came to the vine- 
ard conscious that they had wasted their day 
d not daring to stipulate forany definite wage, 
jut leaving themselves confidently in the hands 
fa master they believed in, were gladdened by 
e unmerited reward of the fullest wage. The 
nen who bargained were paid according to their 
vargain; the men who trusted got far more than 
hey could have dared to bargain for. 

The principle is more easily understood be- 
ause we ourselves so commonly act upon it. 
The man who bargains and must have everything 
n black and white, and thus shows that in work- 
ng for you it is himself he is looking after and 
eeking to profit, gets every penny he bargained 
or, but not a penny beyond; whereas the man 
vho fears his work may not please you, but, if 
rou wish it, will try and do his best, and says not 
.word about pay—to this man you give as much 
is you decently can, and always more than he is 
sxpecting. What you relish and reward, God 


142 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


also relishes and rewards. It is work done witl 
some human feeling in it that you delight in 
What you give out to be done at a certain rat 
you accept and pay for, but take no heed of hin 
who does it. There is nothing personal betweet 
you. He does not work for you, but for hi 
wage. His work may be most important an 
thoroughly well done, it may bear the mark o 
time and toil upon it, but it is the work of a hire 
ling with whom you are quits when you pay hin 
what he contracted to receive. 

3. Thirdly, the same difference of spirit among 
the laborers is brought out in the envious anc 
grudging temper of the first hired and last pai 
men. Peter must have felt himself gravely re 
buked by the picture here drawn of the man wht 
had listened to the first call of Christ, but whe 
after a full, honest day’s work, was found to b 
possessed of a selfish, grudging spirit that fille 
him with discontent and envy. It was now plait 
that this early-hired laborer had little interes 
in the work, and that it was no satisfaction t 
him to have been able to do twelve times as mucl 
as the last-hired laborer. He had the hireling’ 
spirit, and had been longing for the shadow an 
counting his wages all day long. English sailor 
have been known to be filled with pity for thei 
comrades whose ships only hove in sight in tim 
to see the enemy’s flag run down, or to fire th 
last shot in a longday’sengagement. They hav 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 143 


so pitied them for having no share in the excite- 
ment and glory of the day that they would will- 
ingly give them as a compensation their own pay 
and prize-money. And the true follower of 
Christ, who has listened to the earliest call of 
his Master and has reveled in the glory of serv- 
ing Him throughout life, will from the bottom of 
his heart pity the man who has only late in life 
‘recognized the glory of the service, and has 
‘had barely time to pick up his tools when the 
dusk of evening falls upon him. It is impossible 
that a man whose chief desire was to advance his 
Master’s work, should envy another laborer who 
had done much less than himself. The very fact 
‘that a man envies another his reward is enough 
‘of itself to convict him of self-seeking in his 
service. 

: The difference in the spirit of the workers 
which is thus brought out in the parable will be 
found, says our Lord, in the Church, and it will 
be attended with like results at the time of judg- 
ment and award. Here also “ many that are first 
shall be last,’ not all, but many; socommonly 
will this be exemplified that there must be some- 
thing in the nature of the case inducing it. Many 
who have done the largest works shall receive 
the smallest reward. Many first in man’s esteem 
shall be last in God’s reckoning. Many who have 
borne the burden and heat of the day, who have 
been conspicuous in the work of the church, whose 





144 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


names are identified with certain charities or 
philanthropic institutions will be rated below 
obscure individuals who have almost no work at 
all to point to. Many who have served longest 
in the Lord’s vineyard have a consciousness that 
they are the great workers, which likens them to 
the self-complacent Peter rather than to the hum- 
ble, trustful, self-ignoring spirit of the late-hired 
laborers. So, many who are most forward in 
the work of the Church and of the world are 
plainly animated by motives which are not above 
suspicion, that nothing ismore obvious or more 
commonly remarked upon than that “many 
are called but few chosen.” Many make trial 
of the work, and labor vigorously in it, but 
few have the purity of motive which gives them 
an abiding place, and wins the approval of 
Christ. And they especially are tempted to fault- 
iness of motive who are first in work; they are 
impressed with their own consequence ; they find 
it difficult to avoid inwardly comparing them- 
selves with those who waste their day ; and more- 
over, many of those who live outwardly blame- 
less and correct lives, and who abound in practi- 
cal work, do so because they are originally of a 
calculating disposition. 

But though many of the first, yet not all of them 
shall be last. This also we know to be true. 
Some at least of the best known workers in the 
vineyard, some who entered it early and never 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 145 


left it for an hour, some who scarcely once straight- 
ened their backs from toil, and dropped asleep as 


they came to the end of their task, knowing noth- 


ing but God’s work their whole life through, have 
also wrought in no bargaining spirit, but passed 


as humble a judgment on their work as the last 
and least and lowest of their fellow-laborers on 
theirs. It isa thing that recalls the mind from 
thinking cynically and contemptuously of human 
nature to find how often the highest faculty, the 
most conspicuous and helpful gifts are used with 
absolute humility and lowliness, with scarcely one 
conscious thought that great good is being done. 
Happily thereare some first who shall remain first ; 
first at their work, and foremost in it; first in the 
field for amount and quality of work done, and 
yet first also in reward, because first in unaffected 
forgetfulness of self and pure devotedness to their 
Master’s interests, and to the work itself. As 
it is often the man who is first in the breach who 
least understands why men should praise him for 
courage, he himself having had no thought of 
danger; asthe charitable man who has helped 
countless miserable creatures and made sacrifices 
which could not be hid, is distressed when his 
friends speak of making public recognition of his 
charity, sosome who have most materially ad- 
vanced the cause of Christ and of humanity are 
precisely those who think most shamefacedly of 


what they have done, and are unfeignedly as- 
Io 


146 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


tonished to hear they have been of any service, 
and cannot once connect the idea of reward with 
any toil they have undergone. 

Again, as there are some first who remain first, 
so there are some last who remain last. Not all 
who enter the vineyard late enter it humbled. 
Not all who do little do it well. Mercenariness 
is not confined to those who have some small 
excuse for it. Even those who have wasted their 
life, and bring but the wreck of it into the king- 
dom, are sometimes possessed with a complacency 
and shamelessness that are astonishing to those 
who know their past history. To come to Christ 
late, and to come unhumbled, is the culminating 
exhibition of human complacency. To bring to 
the vineyard neither strength to labor nor purity 
of motive is the extreme of unprofitableness. 

This parable, rightly read, gives no encourage- 
ment to late entrance into the Lord’s service. 
To think of this service as that which we can 
add at any convenient time to the other work of 
life is to mistake it altogether. The service of 
Christ should cover the whole of life ; and what 
is not done as a part of His work may in some 
respects as well not be done at all. All outside 
His vineyard is idleness. You may be busily, 
painfully engrossed in worldly business, and yet 
absolutely idle as to what conscience persistently 
reminds you is the one thing needful. Your life 
may be far through, as years go, but the main 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 147 


business of it not yet begun: your prospects 
always improving, yourselves no better than when 
you began. If there are those among you who 
feel this painfully enough, who keenly feel the 
vanity of life, who have tasted its distresses and 
disappointments, who know how little it all comes 
to, a few pleasures, a few excitements, one or two 
great changes, a great deal of dull labor, and a 
good many sorrows, and then the plunge into 
oblivion; if there are those who would welcome 
anything that would put a heart and a purpose 
into the whole, and lift every part of life up out 
of the low and despicable rut in which it for the 
most part moves, then why do you hesitate to 
respond when Christ says, “ Why stand ye here 
all the day idle? Go ye into My vineyard, and 
what is right ye shall receive?” Do you not 
believe Him? Do you fancy that He will suffer 
you tospend yourself in what is despicable, and 
fruitless, and disappointing? Why waste your 
day? Why waste another hour of it, if there is 
real work to be done, if there is work of such im- 
portance to be done that He Himself left heaven 
to do it, if there is work to be done that the world 
needs, that men will be the better for, if there is 
the least opening for you to put your hand to 
what will stand God’sinspection, why go on idling 
and frittering your one precious life away on 
what you yourself despise and are weary of ? 

Let us then examine ourselves in the light of 


148 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


this parable. Our Lord pointedly invites us to 
work for Him, to live for Him, and to do so in 
the assurance that whatsover is right He will give. 
These laborers who went in faith got more than 
the men who: had made what they considered a 
good bargain. In other words, you are as sure to 
be rewarded for every hour you spend in Christ’s 
service as if you had His written bond and had 
made your own terms. If you had considered 
what you would like in return for anything you 
do for Him, and if you had stipulated for this, 
you would not thus have so much as you aresure 
to have by simply leaving itto Him. We need 
not concern ourselves about the future: we need 
not be mentally counting our wages; He would 
have us fall in love with the service, so that even 
though there were to be no reward at all, we 
should still choose it as the most honorable, the 
most useful, the most joyful way of spending our 
life, indeed as the one service which is perfect 
freedom, and satisfies our idea of what life should 
be. The slow, hesitating, suspicious person that 
thinks Christ wants to use him for some ends that 
are not the proper ends of human life, the foolish 
person that always feels as if Christ did not un- 
derstand what it is that gives the truest relish to 
human life—such persons are not the laborers 
He desires. The bargaining spirit gets what it 
bargains for, but also gets His rebuke: the spirit 
that is too broken to bargain, too crushed and 


LABORERS IN THE VINEYARD. 149 


self-difident to make terms, but can only go and 
work and trust, gets a reward that carries init the 
hearty approval and encouragement of the Lord. 
Are you then in His vineyard at all, or are you 
stillamong the unhappy ones who cannot decide, 
or among those who have looked at the vineyard 
in the distance, and have fallen asleep in the 
market-place and are dreaming they are in it ? or 
are you among those who eagerly watch for the 
reappearance of the Master, and as soon as He 
turns the corner of the street offer themselves to 
Him? He calls you now; He calls you every 
hour of the day. And if already in His service, 
are we among those who wish to know what they 
are to get or make by it? or do we leave all that 
to Him and enter His work because we are weary 
of idleness and sick at heart with hope deferred, 
or sore with the ill-usage we have received from 
other masters ? 

None of us, surely, dare push this parable aside 
and pass on into life without satisfying our con- 
science about this matter. Many of usare called. 
Many of us are in the vineyard, and have long 
been init. We have borne, in a mild fashion, 
the burden and heat of the day. We have given 
money ; we have spent a great deal of time; we 
have performed a number of worrying duties. 
And we mean to go on. Well, in what spirit 
have we labored? Has it been to earn or main- 
tain a reputation, or to make our influence felt P 


150 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. , 


Has it been under a dim impression that such 
works and sacrifices are necessary in those who 
claim to be Christians? Have you rendered them 
as a kind of payment to enable you to maintain 
the feeling that you are Christ’s people? Have 
you striven to help others mainly for the sake of 
doing yourself good, of helping out your own 
salvation, and keeping your own hands clean? 
Has your object been advantage to yourself, 
either future or present, spiritual or worldly? If 
so, you will have your penny, but the cordial ap- 
proval of your master goes to others. You may 
say, Is it not right to aim at our own salvation, and 
do those good works which are needful for that 
purpose? Certainly it is right to save yourself, 
but it is better to save ten other people. It ishe 
who loses sight of his own interests and forgets 
himself because he is so much taken up with the 
common work and the common good that finds 
he has won the highest reward. 

Look, then, to your motives. See that it be 
pure love of the work and love of the Master that 
draw you to it. Actions are always within our 
own power. Hard work is always possible, and 
great sacrifices almost any man can make. It is 
the motive that is unattainable save by those 
whom Christ Himself has renewed. 


THE TWO SONS. 


MATT. xxi. 28, 32. 


THE three parables of which this is the first 
were spoken at one time, and that the most crit- 
ical of our Lord’s life. He had come to Jeru- 
salem knowing the danger of doing so, but also 
persuaded that it was now high time to bring 
matterstoanissue. Hesaw that things were now 
ripe for a public manifestation of Himself as the 
Christ. A career of obscure philanthropy in 
Galilee could no longer be pursued. The time 
was past for His laying His hand on the mouth 
of those who would have published His majesty 
and proclaimed their conviction that He was the 
Son of God. He goes to Jerusalem, that in the 
temple itself and before the chief priests and 
constituted authorities, He may again proclaim 
His own dignity, and be explicitly and finally 
received or rejected. Accordingly He makes it 
impossible for the authorities any longer to over- 
look His actions. They are compelled by the 
growing excitement of the people to appoint a 
deputation of their best men to wait upon Him. 


This deputation challenge His right to teach in 
151 


“152 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


this unlicensed way, and put to Him the testing 
question, ‘‘By what authority doest thou these 
things,” no doubt with the expectation that He 
would claim Divine authority, and so give them 
a handle against Him. But our Lord declines to 
give any account of His authority further than 
what was manifest in His words and deeds them- 
selves. If they could not see divine authority in 
the things themselves, if they did not feel that in 
His presence they were in the presence of God, 
they were not likely to see or to feel the Divine 
presence merely because He said it was there. 

It is astonishing with what persistency numbers 
of persons continue to make the demand of these 
priests, and put themselves in the condition our 
Lord condemns. They will not accept a thing 
as Divine because it has the attributes of Divinity 
attaching to it, but they ask for further evidence. 
They will not accept a teacher as inspired, because 
of the truth he utters, but ask for an authority 
external to himself, and over and above his 
teaching, which shall guaranteeittothem. They 
will not bow before Christ Himself, because their 
whole nature finds in Him the highest and best 
they know; but, like these ignorantly dishonest 
priests, they ask for Hisauthority. They ask for 
a guarantee outside of Himself which shall war- 
rant them in trusting Him, as if there could be 
any possible guarantee so perfect as the actual 
moral supremacy they feel Himto possess, That 


THE TWO SONS. 153 


man’s faith is resting on a very precarious foun- 
dation who believes not because the truth itself 
has laid hold upon his conscience, but because he 
is yielding to authority ; who accepts Christ, not 
because he finds in Christ the true Lord of His 
spirit, but because the claims of Christ are estab- 
lished by what is external to His person. 

Jesus, however, is not content merely to evade 
their entangling question. He turns their assault 
against themselves, and so leads the conversation 
that they are compelled to utter their own con- 
demnation in presence of the multitude. The 
parable is too plain-spoken to be evaded. They 
cannot deny that the satisfactory Son is not the 
one who professes great respect for His father’s 
authority, while he does only what pleases him- 
self, but the one who does his father’s bidding, 
even though he has at first disowned His author- 
ity. They are compelled, that is, to own that a 
mere bowing to God’s authority and professing 
that they attach great weight to it is of no ac- 
count in God’s sight unless it be accompanied by 
an actual doing of the things He enjoins. John 
came to you, our Lord says to the priests and 


elders, in the way of righteousness, enjoining the 


| 
| 
: 


works that belong to the kingdom of God, setting 


clear before your conscience the duties actually 
incumbent on you. You felt he was God’s mes- 


_ senger, the words he spoke proved him to be so; 
the holy conduct he enforced compelled you in- 


154 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


wardly to own him a messenger of God to you 
you dare not now in the presence of these people 
deny that he was from God. Why then did you 
not do his bidding? He was God’s messenger, he 
told you plainly who the Christ was, and yet you 
believed him not. You refused to work the work 
of God peculiar to your time and office, the work 
of acknowledging and believing in the Son of 
God, witnessed by John whom ye yourselves 
know to be a true witness. You come now and 
ask Me for my authority as if, were you convinced 
it was Divine, you would gladly yield to it; as if 
you were anxious to know God’s will, as if there 
were on your lips constantly the “I go, sir,” of 
this Son, whereas already it has been made clear 
to your own conscience what God would have you 
do regarding Me, and yet you obey Him not. 
These publicans and harlots whom you despise 
and loathe are in the kingdom of God while you 
are outside; for bad as they were and daringly as 
they had disowned God’s authority, and little 
profession of belief in God as they made, they 
yet repented when John proclaimed the coming 
kingdom, and have believed in and submitted to 
the King. 

These men were thus unceremoniously dealt 
with by our Lord because they were false. They 
may not have clearly seen that they were false, 
but they were so. They were false because they 
professed to be anxious for additional evidence 























THE TWO SONS. 155 


regarding Christ, while already they had sufficient 
evidence, They were resisting the light already 
shed into their conscience, and yet professed a 
desire for further light. And probably inno age 
of the world’s history have there been so many in 
their state of mindasinourown. Thereis avery 
zeneral misapprehension as to the amount and 
sind of evidence that may reasonably be de- 
anded in favor of Christ’s claims, and also as 
-o the manner in which the evidence may be ex- 
dected to find entrance into the mind and produce 
tonviction. And it is certain that unless we use 
the light we have and follow it, weare not likely 
to reach fuller light. If we are at present sure 
that at any rate the moral teaching of Christ is 
aealthy, let us practise that teaching; for, if we 
Jo not, we reject the aid which more than any 
ther is likely to bring us to Christ’s own point 
f view, and to open our sympathies with His 
ourpose and to enlighten us regarding His whole 
d0sition. 

The application of the parable, then, to those 
:o whom our Lord was speaking could not be 
misunderstood. The first son—the man who at 
rst said he would not go but afterwards repented 
nd went—was the representative of the pub- 
licans and harlots. They had openly asserted 
their unwillingness to work for God: they had 
ade no professions of obedience, they had de- 
idedly turned their backs on everything good. 


156 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


They had lived inopen sin,and were not surprise 
that men should denounce them as hopelessly 
corrupt. The lad that plainly told his father hi 
was not going to the vineyard but meant to hav 
a holiday with his boon companions would no 
have been more astonished to he called a dutifu 
and obedient son, than these publicans and har 
lots would have been had any one addressed then 
as good and godly people. They knew the; 
were doing wrong: they were conscious of thei 
wickedness. But John’s preaching went to thei 
hearts, because he assured them that even fo 
them there was an open gate into the kingdom o 
God. They repented because they were assurec 
that for them there was a place for repentance anc 
a way back to purity of conscience, to holiness o 
life, to God. 

The priests and elders, the men who repre 
sented all that was respectable and religious ir 
the country, were depicted in the second son whe 
promptly said he would goand work for his father 
but did not do so. This son gives his answer it 
the one word “1,” as if he meant, “Oh! you 
need have no doubt about me. I am ready. | 
am at your service. My brother is a shameles 
fellow, but as for me you have only to commanc 
me.” This son takes it for granted heisthe du 
tiful son; he puts no pressure on himself to se 
cure obedience ; he is conscious of no necessity} 
to guard against temptations to forgetfulness, t 


THE TWO SONS. 157 


ndolence, to selfishness. He takes for granted 
hat no deficiency will be found in him, and his 
complacency is his ruin. We all know this 
cind of man: the tradesman to whom you give 
slaborate instructions, and who assures you he 
vill send you an article precisely to your mind, 
gut actually sends you what is quite useless for 
your purposes; the friend who bids you leave 
he matter to him, but who has no sooner turned 
he corner of the street than he meets some one 
vhose conversation puts you and your affairs 
lean out of his mind. If promising had been all 
hat was wanted, nocommunity could have been 
nore godly than Jerusalem. These priests and 
Iders spent their lives in professing to be God’s 
yeople. Their day was filled with religious serv- 
ces. They had no secular business at all; they 
vere identified with religion; their whole life was 
| proclamation that they were God's servants, and 
. profession of their willingness to obey. And 
ret they failed to do the one thing they were 
here todo. They heard John’s teaching, they 
cnew it was the voice of God, but they refused 
© prepare their hearts and understandings, as he 
aught them, that they might recognize Christ. 
The one thing that John commanded them to do, 
© prepare for and receive the King, they failed 
odo. Their whole profession collapsed like a 
jurst bubble; they were proved to be shams, to 
9e dealing in mere words with no idea of realities. 


158 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


It is natural to suppose that the religious world 
will in every generation present similar phenom- 
ena. It requires no exceptional discernment to 
see that in our own day the spiritual condition of 
these priests and elders is abundantly reproduced. 
There are many now whose life is in great part 
devoted to various ways of declaring a willingness 
to serve God, but whose life is also marked by 
disobedience. If you listen to what these persons 
say you would fancy they were God’s most in- 
dustrious servants; if you look at what they do 
you find nothing done for God atall, or that their 
own peculiar and chief duty is neglected. Every 
person, therefore, who is conscious that he re- 
sembles this son in professing a willingness to do 
God’s will, should consider whether he does not 
also resemble him in leaving that will undone. 
We seem to be anxious to discover what God 
would have us do. We read His word—we go 
where we hear it explained and enforced—we are 
rather proud of our exceptional knowledge of its 
meaning—we seem to set great value on any hand 
that will point out the way, on any voice that 
will say to us: There, that is the work for you. 

But does not this forwardness in hearing what 
God’s will is sometimes take the place of our 
doing it? Do we not sometimes mistake our 
zeal in hearing good counsel about spiritual 
things for a zeal in God’s service? Is not our 
knowledge, or our pious feeling, or our known 


THE TWO SONS. 159 


‘sympathy with religion, allowed to stand for 
actual work done? Are we not sometimes as 
satisfied with ourselves when we have seen clearly 
‘the reasonableness and desirableness of serving 
God, and when we have felt some desire to serve 
Him, as if we had, in fact, made a sacrifice in our 
business for the sake of righteousness? We con- 
-gratulate ourselves on feeling well-disposed, we 
-complacently number ourselves among God’s 
people, we think with satisfaction of our clear 
and moving views of Christ’s work; and when 
all these clear views and pious feelings have 
passed away without any result in the shape of 
work done, we still congratulate ourselves on 
having cherished them. There may be some 
doubt about our morality, but there can be none 
about our religion. Men may not be quite sure 
how far they can trust us ina business transac- 
tion; our influence at home may not be of the 
best kind; but no one can have any doubt that 
if the religious men of the city were convened 
our name would appear among the invited. 

_ Let us then deal honestly with ourselves, and 
wipe off the reproach of promising without per- 
forming, and of staying among the mere prelimi- 
-maries of obedience. God has desired us not 
only to think right, to cherish certain feelings, 
to maintain certain observances, but He has en- 
joined all those things as helps and incentives to 
the doing of His will. He has said to each of 


| 





160 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


us, “Go, work.” His call comes to us in this 
form. If you have any connection with God at 
all, He has said to you, “Go, work.” And it is 
a poor reason, surely, to offer for our not work- 
ing, that we have seen most clearly the reasons 
for working, and that no one has been more ready 
to promise obedience. Which of you, being a 
parent, would not stand amazed, if, when you 
challenged your child for not doing what you 
had told him, he were to say in excuse, “ But I 
promised to do it; I know that I ought to have 
done it.” Would you not fear that some strange 
obliquity of moral vision had affected your child ; 
and would you not fear lest a child who could 
offer so utterly unreasonable an excuse might 
fall into the most flagrant and enormous vices? 
The question, then, is, What have you done ? 
The passer-by who saw the one son stripped and 
hard at work under the sun among the vines, 
while the other lounged simperingly on the road 
telling people what an admirable man his father 
was, and what a pleasure it was to work for him, 


and how much he hoped the vintage would be — 


abundant—I say, the passer-by would have not 
the slightest difficulty in forming a judgment of 
the two sons. Would he that has noted your 
habits—and many have noted your habits—feel 


quite sure you were God’s obedient son? Would — 


he think it absurd to ask whether you had sazd 
you would obey, having the far better proof of 


a 


THE TWO SONS. 161 


an obedient spirit, that you were actually obey- 

ing? So judge yourself. Do not believe in your 
purpose to serve God better until you do serve 

Him better. Give no credit to yourself for any- 
thing which is not actually accomplished. Do 

not let us be always speaking of endeavors, and 
hopes, and intentions, and struggles, and convic- 
tions of what is right, but let us at last do God’s 
will. 

The other son bluntly refused at first to go 
and do his father’s bidding. His father had ad- 
dressed to him a most reasonable request, and 

applied to him an epithet much more endearing 
than our word “Son;” but he is answered with 
a harsh, surly refusal. There is no attempt made 
by the son to excuse himself or soften the re- 
_fusal; no mention of previous engagements, pri- 
vate business of his own, or necessary duties else- 
where. He is unfeeling and wantonly rude, as 
well as disobedient. He represents, therefore, 
' those who are rather forward in their repudiation 

of God’s authority. So far from desiring to be 
considered godly, they rather affect a deeper, 
_ more resolute ungodliness than they feel, a more 
vicious wickedness than belongs to them. They 
| flaunt their opposition to all that is Christian. 

Such persons are frequently the subjects of a 
peculiar delusion. Being themselves quite honest 
and open in their ungodliness, they profess and 


cultivate a special abhorrence of hypocrisy. No 
It 





162 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


character is so contemptible in their eyes as that 
which pretends to grace, and thus loses the pleas- 
ure both of sin and of holiness; and amidst all 
their enjoyments there are few greater than that 
which proceeds from the unmasking of some pro- 
fessed Christian. They seem to think hypocrisy 
the crowning sin; and so zealously do they cul- 
tivate their skill in detecting it that they become 
blind to every other. Like well-trained hounds, 
they know no game but that they are trained to 
hunt. And thus they actually glide into the be- 
lief that because they are not hypocrites, they 
are not in a dangerous position. But if a man is 
going to destruction, it is, after all, a poor con- 
solation that he is doing so with his eyes open. 
Is it not time for a man to bethink himself, when 
he finds matter for self-gratulation in the fact that 
he does not make the smallest profession of serv- 
ing God or of seeking to be saved? You are 
honest in refusing to assume a character you 
do not possess, but are you wise to refuse the 
real attainment of that character? You are 
honest in seeking to be known for what you are, 
but are you wise to be what you are? Could 
you not be equally honest were you nearer to 
God and liker Him? It will not stand you in 
the day when God takes account of His servants 
to say that you never professed to serve Him. 
But the whole history of this first son is not 
that he refused to labor for his father; he after- 





THE TWO SONS. 163 


_ 


wards repented andwent. Perhapsthe hurt look 
of his father had shot some compunction into his 
soul. Perhaps the very roughness of his own 
voice had startled him, and suddenly revealed to 
him how far he had gone in sin, and how fast his 
heart was hardening. Perhaps the weary gait of 
his aged and unassisted father, his feeble efforts 
to accomplish tasks that required younger sinews 
than his, his evidently heart-broken and listless 
and mechanical way of setting about the work— 


_ perhaps this smote the young man’s heart as he 


lay sunning himself in indolence, and recalled old 


_ days when he was happy with his father, and went 
_ to carry the tools he was too young to use; and 


the old feelings of filial affection rose again within 
him,—he repented and went to the vineyard. 
Are there none who know that it is time for 
them to follow this youth’s example; none who 
are conscious they have not done their duty to- 
wards God; who have made no pretense even of 
doing God’s will, but have persistently shut their 
eyes to His love, denied His claims, and despised 
His commandment? Do you feel no compunc- 


tion? Are you worse than even those publicans 
and harlots who no sooner learned there was for. 
_giveness and a clean life for them than they 


eagerly sought God? Do you prefer a life every 
hour of which pains and grieves your heavenly 
Father, and a life which in itself is condemned by 
God and man; do you prefer a life which in your 


164 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


sober moments you cannot yourself approve, and 
which lacks all tenderness towards God and all 
truth and purity, to a life which God Himself 
calls you to as worthy of you and as the begin- 
ning of never-ending blessedness? Were it pos- 
sible for God to call you by name and from His 
unseen dwelling this moment to break silence and 
call you to work for Him, were He to tell you of 
His love for you and to invite you to turn to Him, 
would you refuse Him, cou/d you refuse Him ? 
Does He not then summon you now? Does He 
not do even more than this? Does He not speak 
within your own heart, and cause you to feel it 
were well and wise to meet with humble welcome 
all His overtures? Canyourest under the stigma 
of a hard-heartedness that cannot be moved by 
infinite tenderness? Can you rest content to turn 
away to your own private employments and ways 
while God offers you that which will make your 
whole work and your whole life true? 

As a whole, this parable shows us how God 
is served by men, and shows us especially that 
though there are greater and less degrees of dis- 
obedience and impenitence, there isno such thing 
as consistent uniform obedience. The best that 
God gets from earth is the obedience of repent- 
ance. Men must still, each for himself, try their 
own way, and only when this is found to be quite 
foolish and hurtful and hopeless, do they try 
God’s way. No one can take God’s word for 





THE TWO SONS. 165 


it that such and such are the things to be done; 
such and such others to be avoided. We must 
for ourselves know good and evil, we must be 
as gods making choice between the good that 
sin brings and its evil, and if then God’s judg- 
ment about sin tallies with our own, we accept it. 
Such a thing as simple, perpetual acceptance of 
God’s commands from first to last is not to be 
found; and repentance, though certainly to be 
rejoiced over, is, after all, only the second best 
thing. Apology, however sincere, is at all times 
a very poor substitute for conduct that needs 
none.* And yet you will often see that a man 
considers that a graceful apology, whether to God 
or men, more than repairs the wrong he has done. 

Let us then be on our guard lest even our re- 
pentance be sin, and our humiliation tainted with 
pride. When we come to God with apology for 
neglect of duty, we are often as proud of having 
insight enough to see deeply into the evil of our 
hearts as we are humbled by a sense of the wrong 


_ we have done in omitting whole years of service. 
_ We seem to be more worthy of praise for discov- 


ering the sinfulness of a past action than of blame 


_ for committing it. We are secretly flattered by 
_ finding that we are taking our place among those 


who have a fine discernment of the higher duties 


_ of the Christian life and of the secret and subtle 


iniquities of the human heart, and when we con- 


* So John Foster in his “ Lectures.” 


166 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


fess these, it is with less shame than complacency. 
Through all our confession there is running a 
silent, “‘I thank Thee, Lord, that I am not as 
other men, who could not confess such sins as I 
am confessing, because they are stilldown among 
the glaring and immoral wickednesses, and have 
not so much as thought of those duties that I 
have been striving after.” It is, no doubt, right 
to be convinced we have been wrong, it is right 
to turn in to God’s vineyard, even though it be 
after refusing to do so, but that complacency 
should mingle with our repentance is surely a 
triumph of duplicity. To make our very con- 
fession of total unprofitableness matter of self- 
gratulation is surely the extreme of even religious 
self-deception. 
But if we carry anything at all with us from 
this parable, it must be this: How greatly our 
knowledge is in excess of our action. Our Lord 
easily elicited from these persons an unqualified 
condemnation of conduct which precisely repre- 
sented their own. They held in their minds 
principles which, had they only been applied to 
their own conduct, would have made them very 
different men. This reproach never passes from 
the world: all of us know more than we practise. 
In the best of us there lies unuseda large amount 
of instructive, stimulating, consolatory knowledge. 
The worst regulated life, the conduct which is 
most shameful and hurtful, is frequently that 


THE TWO SONS. 167 


ef a thoroughly intelligent and well-instructed 
person. In the mindof the most careless among 
us there is held truth enough to save the world, 
and principles which, if only applied, would form 
an unblemished character. And which of us, 
when we recount and condemn the faults of 
others, does not show an intelligence and a zeal 
for virtue of which there is small sign in some 
parts of our own life ? 
_ The question which this parable suggests is 
not, what do you know? but, what are you doing? 
not, have you acknowledged the righteousness of 
God’s demands? have you seen that it is good 
for you to obey? do you own and constantly pro- 
fess that you are His servants? but, have you 
done what God has given toyoutodo? God has 
commanded you to love Him with all your heart 
and strength; you know you ought, but have 
you done it? He has told you that this espe- 
cially is the work of God, that you believe on 
‘Him whom He hath sent; have you done it? 
He calls you to work for Him, to consider what 
you can do to forward what is good, to set before 
you as your aim in life not advantage of any kind 
‘to yourself, but righteousness in yourself and in 
others. Do not despair of doing something 
useful; there are ways in which you can be help- 
ful. These publicans and harlots might well 
have thought there was no room for them to do 
good in the community, and that their tastes 









168 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


were such that they could never love purity and 
truth and unselfishness. You may feel the same. 
You may feel that if you do the external duty 
you yet have no love for it, and you cannot bear 
to look forward to a life in which at every step 
you will require to put compulsion on yourself to 
do so. But such will not be the case. Do the 
duty, and the spirit will come. Obey God, and 
you will learn to love Him. Compel yourself to 
all duties now, and soon you will like the duties 
that are now distasteful. The man that is drawn 
out of the water half-drowned can only be restored 
by artificial respiration, but, if this is persevered 
in, the natural breathing at last begins, and the 
functions of healthy, unforced respirations super- 
sede the artificial means. And thus God educates 
us to ease and naturalness in all duty. Under 
cover of the outward conduct, the new spirit 
grows and grows to such strength that at last it 
maintains the outward conduct as its natural fruit. 


THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 
MATT. xxi. 33-45- 


“ HEAR another parable,” says our Lord to 
these ecclesiastical dignitaries who were probably 
feeling that they had heard quite enough already. 
Their dignity, they felt, was suffering in the eyes 
of the mob, who could not fail to see that the 
tables had been turned against them, and who 
rarely conceal the rough relish they have in con- 
templating the discomfiture of pompous ignorance 
and sanctimonious arrogance. If there flew 
round the circle none of those jeering remarks or 
smart personal hits which would inevitably have 
been elicited from an English crowd, there would 
not be wanting significant nods and satisfied 
smiles which would show with equal clearness to 
the priests and elders that in seeking to expose 
the pretensions of Jesus they had only exposed 
themselves. Their falseness in disguising their 
reluctance to accept Jesus as the Christ under 
pretense of seeking further evidence, was with a 
wonderful facility laid bare to all. They stood 
convicted of refusing to accept the testimony of 


one whom they dared not deny to be from God. 
169 


170 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


They stood convicted of having incapacituted 
themselves for recognizing the divine in Jesus. 
But theirs is not the guilt of the common 
unbeliever; it was not merely their personal duty 
and interest to keep themselves awake to the 
divine by righteousness of life, it was their official 
duty as well. It was the duty for which their 
office existed. They must therefore be shown up 
as men who are hollow shams, who are com- 
placently maintaining their official dignity and 
the routine and forms of their office, while they 
are wholly oblivious of its one great object. They 
are worse than useless. They are as agents whom 
a man has appointed to manage his business or 
his property for him, and who use their positions 
for embezzling the entire proceeds, and enriching 
themselves at his expense. 

The parabolic dress under which this warning 
or judgment is carried home to them is a very 
thin veil, through which no one could fail to dis- 
cern the living truth. The liberally cared-for 
vineyard, furnished with every advantage to 
facilitate productiveness, was of course Israel, 
hedged off from the outlying and less cared for 
fields of heathenism, and furnished with all that 
goes to fructify human nature. AsGod had long 
since declared, nothing that could be done had 
been left undone. As many men will go to any 
expense in improving their property, trying new 
methods, providing the best implements, taking 


THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 171 


a pride in having every road and fence in good 
repair, so everything had been done in Israel that 
could be expected to fertilize human nature. A 
small section of humanity had been railed off, and 


the experiment was made that it might be seen to 


what a pitch of productiveness this most fruitful 
of God’s plants could be brought. A family or 
race of men was chosen and set apart for the very 
purpose of receiving every advantage which could 
help men to produce the proper fruit of man; to 
maintain a vigorous, healthy life, and to yield re- 
sults which might seem to justify the care spent 
onthem. There was to bea nursery of virtue, 
where any one would only have to look in order 
to see what proper cultivation couldeffect. Here 
it was to be shown that barbarism, degradation, 
violence, lust, and idolatry were not the proper 
fruit of human nature. In this garden man was 
to receive every possible aid and inducement to 
development and productiveness: nothing was 
wanting which could win men to holiness, noth- 
ing which could enlarge, purify, fertilize human 
nature. 

And what was the result? The result was that 
which every reformatory in the country gives, 
namely, that human nature in the abstract is one 
thing ; in the concrete, in the individual, another ; 
that as some soils simply absorb all that you 
can put into them and give no sign, so do most 
men simply absorb all manner of inducements, 


172 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


counsels, warnings, aids, and bring forth nothing 
serviceable to God or man. Even persons pro- 
fessing religion are quite contented, nay, even 
think they are making vast attainment and thriv- 
ing magnificently, when they are merely receiv- 
ing, and doing nothing or little. They measure 
themselves by the care God is spending on 
them, not by the fruit they are yielding; by the 
amount of instruction they have received and 
retain, not by the use they have made of it; by 
the grace spent upon them, and not by the re- 
sults. In short, they make the blunder which sub- 
verts the whole of religion, of turning means into 
ends. 

But in this parable it is not the plants that are 
censured for barrenness, but the keepers of the 
vineyard that are condemned for unfaithfulness 
to the owner. The fruit borne, whether more or 
less than common, was intercepted by the hus- 
bandmen. They used their position solely for 
their own advantage. That is to say, the priests 
and elders of the Jews had fallen into the com- 
mon snare of ecclesiastical leaders, and had used 
the dignity and advantageous position of their 
office for their own behoof, and had failed to re- 
member that they had it only as God’s servants. 
The religious leader is quite as liable as the polit- 
ical or military leader to be led by a desire for 
glory, applause, notoriety, distinction, power. 
And the Church is quite as open a field for the 





THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 173 


exercisé and manifestation of such unworthy 
motives as the State is.* The Church, being a 
society of men, must be managed by the usual 
methods, which all societies of men adopt. There 
must be combination, contrivance, adjustment, 
discussion, laws and regulations. The Church in 
its outward system and movements must be 
wrought by the same machinery as other large 
associations use. And it is notorious that the 
mere working of this machinery requires no spirit- 
ual faculty in the persons who manage it. It 
calls into exercise a certain class of gifts and 
faculties, certain talents and qualities which are 
eminently serviceable, but which may equally 
be exercised for the State or for the Church, for 
the world or for God. The political leader who 
negotiates with foreign powers, who foresees 
calamity and has skill to avert it, who can control 
large bodies of men and keep vast organizations 
in noiseless motion, may exercise these great gifts 
either for his country and his God, or merely for 
the sake of making or maintaining his reputation 
as the most influential man of his generation. 
And the ecclesiastic who has very much the same 
kind of work to do, feeling the pulse of the theo- 
logical and ecclesiastical world, making out 
through the distorting haze of public report and 
opinion what are the facts of a case and what is 


* See the late Canon Mozley’s Sermon on “ The Reversal of 
Human Judgment.” 


174 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


best to be done in it, and talking over to his view 
large bodies of men—this man, like the politician, 
may be serving his God, or he may be serving 
himself. Success may be the idol of the one as 
truly as of the other. To have a large religious 
following and wide influence in the Church may 
be as thoroughly selfish and worldly a desire as to 
be at the head of a strong political party. It is 
not the sphere in which one’s work is done that 
proves its spirituality or worldliness ; neither is it 
always the nature of the work that is done, but 
the motive that tests whether it is spiritual or 
worldly. These priests and elders had not escaped 
the snare into which their predecessors had fallen, 
and to which all their successors are exposed. 
They had used their position to attract applause 
to themselves, or to make their influence felt in 
the community, or to win for themselves a name 
as defenders of the faith. 

Another and still more insidious form of the 
same temptation it may be worth while to notice. 
It is that temptation to which our Lord alluded 
when He censured this same class of persons for 
their zeal in proselytizing. But why so? Is not 
zeal in propagating religion a good thing? If 
these foremost men in the Jewish Church com- 
passed sea and land to make one proselyte, is this 
not that very missionary zeal which the Jews are 
upbraided for wanting, and the modern Church 
prides itself on possessing? Is evangelistic fervor 





THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 175 


in the nineteenth century a thing to applaud, 
while the same fervor in the first is to be con- 
demned? or what was it in these men’s zeal that- 
so roused our Lord’s indignation? It was that 
same element which so often still taints zeal for 
the propagation of religious truth—the desire 
rather to bring men over to my way of thinking 
and soto strengthen my own position, than to 
bring them to the truth. My way of thinking 
may be the truth, or may, at least, be much 
nearer it than the opinions held by others, and for 
them it may be a good thing to be brought over 
to my views; but for myself itis a bad thing and 
the mere strengthening of a selfish craving, if I 
seek to propagate my opinions rather because 
they are mine than because they are the truth. 
And how wide-spreading and deep-reaching an 
evil this is, those well know who have observed 
religious controversy and seen how dangerously 
near propagandism lies topersecution. The zeal 
that proceeds from a loving consideration for 
others does not, when resisted, darken into vio- 
lence and ferocity. The mother seeking to per- 
_suade her son does not become fierce when op- 
posed, but only increasingly tender and pitifully 
gentle. The zeal for truth that storms at opposi- 
tion and becomes bitter and fierce when con- 
 tradicted, you may, therefore, recognize as spring- 
ing from a desire rather to have one’s own wisdom 

and one’s own influence acknowledged than from 


176 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


either deep love for others or deep regard for the 
truth as the truth. 

But to return—the implied and slightly dis- 
guised condemnation of the parable our Lord 
proceeds to enforce in an explicit form. The 
truth which had been sheathed in the parable He 
thrusts home now with naked point. “ The king- 
dom of God shall be taken from you and given to 
a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.” And 
this warning is grounded not on a parable, which 
they might have affected to despise, but on a 
passage of the very Scriptures they professed to 
be the guardians of. There had been the warning 
before their eyes, read by them, sung by them at 
their festivals, carefully treasured in their mem- 
ories; and yet, like us all, they had so little 
penetrated to its sense, had so little thought out 
its meaning and possible application, had looked 
upon it so much as a dead letter and so little as 
alive for them and for all men, that our Lord has 
yet to ask them: “ Did ye never read in the 
Scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected 
is become the head of the corner?” Is not this 
stone the same as the heir sent by the lord of the 
vineyard? Are not ye now in danger of fulfill- 
ing the prophecy ye know so well? Are you not 
about to reject and cast contempt on one whom 
in your souls you know to be worthy of far other 
treatment ? | 

The careful reader of this conversation will be 





THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 177 


struck with two points in it—first that Jesus 
claims to be the heir of God; in other words, He 
deliberately sets Himself on a wholly different 
level from the other prophets—high above Isaiah, 
Elijah, nay, even high above Moses himself. 
They were all servants; He is in quite a different 
relation to the proprietor, that is, to God. Heis 
the Son and Heir; in acting for God He acts for 
Himself. It is because the vinedressers identify 
Him with the owner that they have a hope of 
_ gaining possession of the vineyard by killing the 
heir. To killa mere servant would have served 
no such purpose, another servant can always be 
appointed ; however high his office and title, an- 
other can always be raised, and equal authority 
can be delegated to him; but there is no other 
son. It is nature and relationship, not mere offi- 
cial dignity, that underlies this title and that is 
implied in the parable. 

But the second point is even more worthy of re- 
-mark. Our Lord implies that this was known by 
these Jewish leaders. Their condemnation was, 
that knowing Him to be the Son of God, they 
slew Him. Peter, indeed, apologetically says 
that they would not have slain Him had they 
known He was the Lord of glory. It may have 
been so in some instances; and, no doubt, had 
they allowed the fact to stand clear before their 
minds, had they given free course to it and weight 


to it, they could not have done what they did. 
12 


178 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Still, as the parable shows, it was just because 
they knew this was the heir that they were so 
eager to remove Him. Their state of mind is” 
perfectly intelligible and very common. There 
lay latent in them a deep consciousness which 
they would not allow to become distinct and in- 
fluential. They had a conviction that Jesus was 
the Christ, but they would not let their mind 
dwell upon it. There are few of us who have not 
such buried convictions, few of us who do not 
leave out of sight thoughts which, if allowed 
influence, would urge us to unwelcome action. 
There are thousands who have a haunting sus- 
picion that Jesus deserves a very different kind 
of recognition from that which they give Him. 
Is there not lying in the mind of some of you 
half-formed thoughts about Jesus, possible if not 
actual convictions, which if you carefully thought 
them out would lead you to take up a different and | 
much more satisfactory attitude towards Him? 
And if there are those who feel that things 
should be plainer, that the majesty of Christ 
should be so borne in upon the soul that all 
would yield to Him, this is natural ; but it is to” 
overlook the fundamental fact that room must be 
left for freedom of choice and the exercise of judg- 
ment. The fact is, that the rejection of Christ by 
so many is one of the proofs that He is Divine. 
It is worldly worth that is acknowledged by all, 
and worldly blessings that are universally ac 








THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 179 


cepted. The higher the blessing, the fewer accept 
it. All wish plenty to eat,a minority value good 
education, a few seek the kingdomof God. And 
so our Lord here points out that it had long been 
foreseen that when He came He would be reject- 
ed. In reply to those questioners who ask how 
He can allow the Hosanna Psalm to be applied to 
Him by the people, He takes this very psalm, 
and out of it proves to the authorities that their 
very resistance and rejection of Him is the proof 
that He is what the crowd were affirming Him to 
 be—the Messiah, the Son and Heir of God, the 
_ Stone despised of the builders, but chosen of God. 
_ Rejection by the builders was one of the marks 
_ by which the foundation chosen by God was to 
be identified. Truth is often more convincingly 
_ exhibited by the opposition of a certain class of 
_men. It is not discredited by their opposition; 
but a primé facie point in its favor is that they 
donot receive it. And, certainly, had the claims 
_ of Jesus been accepted by these dried-up formal 
_ traditionalists we should have had some cause 
_ for doubt. 

_ Abandoning the figure used in the parable, our 
Lord makes use of a new figure to complete 
the warning. He speaks of two possible contin. 
gencies—“‘ Whosoever shall fall on this stone shall 
_ be broken ”—this had been declared by Isaiah— 
“but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will grind him 
to powder,” this figure had been familiarized by 


180 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Daniel’s use of it. The stone which lies ready 
hewn and suitable for the best part of a building 
may inflict severe injury on the builder, either by 
his carelessly stumbling upon it, falling from a 
height upon it, and so getting himself bruised and 
broken; or it may fall from a height upon him, in 
which case it is certain death. 

The first case is that in which Christ is a stone 
of stumbling to those to whom He is presented. 
God lays this stone everywhere in our way that 
we may build upon it or set it high in the place 
of honor, and we cannot simply walk on as if 
God had done no such thing. Whatever else 
Christ is, He is substantial, a reality as solid as 
the stone against which your foot is jarred. To 
make as if He were not, and to pass on untouched 
and unchanged, is impossible. If we attempt to 
do so, ignoring that the stone is there, we stumble 
and fall and injure ourselves. The foundation 
stone becomes a stone of offense. Every one who 
hears the gospel, every one in whose path Christ 
is laid, is either the better or the worse for it. 
The gospel once heard is “henceforward a per- 
petual element in the whole condition, character, 
and destiny of the hearer.” No man who has 
heard can be as if he had not. Though he may 
wish to pass on as if he had not seen Christ at all, 
he is not the same man as he was before, his spir- 
itual condition is altered, possibilities have dawned 
upon his mind, openings into regions which are 


_ OO eee ne ee 





THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 181 


new and otherwise inaccessible, he is haunted by 
unsettled perplexities, doubts, anxieties, thoughts. 

This attitude of mind must have been very 
common in Christ’s own time, many persons must 
have shrunk from the responsibility of determin- 
ing for themselves what they ought to think of 
Him. Many now dothe same. They wish to 
overlook Him and pass on into life as if He were 
not in their path. But how foolish if He be the 
one foundation on whom a life can safely be built. 
Men do not think of sin as a permanent founda- 
tion—they only think of it as a temporary ex- 
pedient—practises get into a man’s life which he 
does not like to think of as permanent, but only 
as serving present turns. They do not deliber- 
ately choose anything as permanently satisfactory, 
cannot bring their minds to the idea of being 
built zz and settled finally, even though they have 
some consciousness that it were wise to be so, 
Those who thus overlook Christ and try to pass 
on into life as if He were not, damage their own 
character, because they know He is there, and 
until they make up their minds about Him, life 
isa mere make-believe. It is thus they are bruised 
on this stone of stumbling. They are practising 
upon themselves, and are not true to their own 
convictions. They do not walk steadily and up- 
rightly as those whose path is ascertained and 
assured, but they stumble as those who are still 
tripped up and held back by something they have 


182 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


not taken account of. Just as aperson who feels 
he has forgotten something, cannot give hismind 
fully to what is before him, but is held back by 
the unconscious effort to remember, so here the 
spirit that has yet to take account of Christ and 
decide regarding Him is held back and distracted. 
Besides, this unwillingness to face facts fairly, 
this desire to do for a time without Christ, and 
as if He were not in our path, is apt to produce a 
habitual falseness in the spirit. You may be un- 
conscious of any such process, but many processes 
go on in us quite as effectually without as with 
our intention. Those which are fatal to the body 
do so. Each refusal to determine regarding 
Christ makes your conscience blunter, your heart 
less open to righteous and reasonable influence. 
It may be by a very little, yet it does. The frost 
of a minute, or of thirty minutes, may be imper- 
ceptible in its result, or it may only draw a few 
pretty lines upon the water, but it is frost all the 
same, and is gradually forming a strength of 
surface which no hammer can break, nor any fire 
melt. By trying, then, to get past Christ and 
make a life for yourself without Him, by trying 
to build on some other foundation, you are both 
trying to do what everything is arranged to defeat, 
and you are injuring your own character, not 
yielding to the influences that you feel to be good, 
nor listening to convictions which you shrewdly 
suspect to be reasonable. 





THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 183 


This bruised condition, however, is remediable. 
The second action of the stone on the builder is 
described as final. The stone, which is of suffi- 
cient massiveness to uphold a world, falls upon 
the unhappy opposer, and the living, hopeful man 
lies an undistinguishable mass. At once slain 
and buried, those who determinedly opposed 
Christ lie oppressed by that which might have 
been their joy. Their dwelling and refuge be- 
comes their tomb. Every excellence of Christ 
they have leagued against themselves. Itis their 
everlasting shame that they were ashamed of Him. 
The faithfulness, truth, and love of Christ, that is 
to say, the qualities whose existence is all that any 
saved man ever had to depend upon, the qualities 
in the knowledge and faith of which the weakest 
and most heartless sinner sets out boldly and 
hopefully to eternity, these all now torment with 
crushing remorse those who have despised them. 
Do not suppose this is an extravagant figure used 
by our Lord to awe His enemies, and that no man 
will ever suffer a doom which can be fairly repre 
sented in these terms. It is a statement of fact. 
Things are to move on eternally in fulfilment of 
the will of Christ. He is identified with all that 
is righteous, all that is wise, all that is ultimately 
successful. To oppose His course, to endeavor 
to defeat His object, to attempt to work out an 
eternal success apart from Him is as idle as to 
seek to stop the earth in its course, or to stand in 


184 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


the path of a stone avalanche in order tostem it. 
His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom—He has 
become the Head of our race, that in Him we 
may together be led on to everlasting prosperity © 
and righteousness. 

The whole forward movement of individuals 
and of the race must be made on the lines laid 
down by Christ, and the time is coming when this 
shall be so plainly manifested that all who have 
not His spirit shall feel that all power has left 
them, and shall see the whole stream of life and 
progress flow past them, leaving them stranded 
and wrecked and useless. Fora long time it may 
be doubtful in a country and in national affairs 
whether progress and prosperity are bound up 
with one party or another, with one spirit in trade 
and in government or with another, and men take 
their sides and adopt their several causes ac- 
cording to their tastesand judgment ; but a day 
comes when the one party is put to confusion, 
and when it is entirely left behind by the current — 
of events. So is it here, but in a far more mo- 
mentous sense. It isnot only national affairs that 
are governed and guided by certain deep laws 
that the craftiest statesman has no power what- 
ever to alter; but the affairs of the individual, of 
each one of us, and of all men together, similarly 
move onwards according to certain immutable 
morallaws. These are revealed to usin Christ, 
that we may know and appropriate them. For, 


THE WICKED HUSBANDMEN. 185 


just in proportion as we do so, and attach our- 
selves to Him, and feel the power and beauty of 
His way and of His spirit, shall we ourselves 
stand with Him when all opposition has slunk 
away ashamed, and enter with Him on the great 
future which will open to those who are capable 
of taking a part in it. What, then, you feel it in 
you to do by God’s grace in the way of bending 
your will to what is right, of subduing the evil in 
you which you see can but lead to death and 
disturbance, these things do, hoping in Him who 
has promised to return and reign eternally. 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON. 
MATT. xxi. 45—xxii. 14, 


THIS parable is spoken to the same mixed 
crowd as the parable of the Two Sons and the 
parable of the Wicked Husbandmen. Sorely hit 
by the two former parables, the chief priests and 
Pharisees would fain have put a stop to this kind 
of teaching, but they feared the people. Public 
opinion here, as often elsewhere, was healthier 
than the opinion of the clique which had the 
official guidance of ecclesiastical and theological 
affairs. Public opinion was too markedly in favor 
of Jesus just at this time for the Pharisees to 
ignore or brave it. They felt they must take it 
into account, and either wait for a turn in the 
tide, or compass their end by craft, and secretly. 
While they hesitate and stand measuring the 
heartiness of the crowd in Jesus’ favor, and con- 
sidering how far they may venture, this third 
parable is launched against them. 

The object of it is still the same—to set ina 
vivid light the guilt of the Jewish leaders in re- 
jecting Christ, and the punishment which in con- 
sequence was to fall uponthem; but to this third 


parable an appendix is added, which is even more 
186 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 187 


striking than the parable itself—an appendix 
spoken, as we shall see, rather for the sake of the 
crowd than as a warning to the Pharisees. 
Already in His parables our Lord had com- 
pared the kingdom of God to a feast, for the sake 
of illustrating the rude, discourteous, and mis- 
taken way in which men deal with God’s invita- 
tions. There are occasions on which men com- 
bine to be happy, meet for the understood pur- 
pose of enjoyment, so that anything which inter- 
rupts or represses the hilarity of the company is 
frowned upon as out of place and inopportune. 
Matters of great importance are postponed, ques- 
tions requiring much gravity in their discussion 
are avoided, anything that might irritate or 
slightly annoy or discompose any single guest is 
excluded, and, in short, everything is arranged to 
admit of free, unrestrained mirth. And when 
such occasions are public, he who refuses to join 
in the national festivity is looked upon asa traitor, 
and he who has private griefs is expected to keep 
them in abeyance, “to anoint his head and wash 
his face that he appear not unto men to fast.” 
Disloyalty could scarcely assume a more marked 
form than if a man being invited to share the 
festal joy of his king on some such worthy occa- 
sion as that here adduced, were either to refuse 
the invitation, or, accepting it, were to conduct 
himself with so sullen and rude a demeanor as to 
show that his feelings were quite out of harmony 


188 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


with his host’s. Such a man would be at once 
recognized as disaffected and a rebel, and also as 
a rebel who had chosen a singularly unfortunate 
and discourteous mode of exhibiting his rebel- 
lion. 

But the speciality of this parable is that the 
feast to which the king invites His subjects is a 
marriage feast. Prominence is given to the 
circumstance that the host is a king, and that 
the occasion of the feast is the marriage of His 
Son. 

It is obvious how this figure was suggested to 
the mind of Christ. Long before His time the 
relation between husband and wife had been used 
to exhibit the devotedness and fidelity with 
which God gives Himself to men, as well as the 
intimacy and loving care to which He admits 
them. And the close alliance between God and 
men which was thus expressed, was actually con- 
summated in the person of Jesus Christ. His 
assumption of humanity into perfect union with 
His own Divine nature was the actual marriage 
of God and man. In Him God and man are 
made one—so truly and perfectly one, that where- 
as formerly marriage was used to illustrate this 
union, now this union stands as the ideal to which 
marriage may aspire, but which it can never 
reach. It is a union which has the characteristics 
of marriage. It is the result of love and choice, 
not of nature; and it implies that the stronger 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 189 


party assume the responsibilities and watch over 
the interests of the weaker. The marriage is 
formed that the stronger party may have fuller 
opportunity to help and serve the weaker. God 
then might reasonably expect that men should, 
at least on this occasion, recognize that God and 
they constituted one kingdom and cause. Well 
might He expect that now, at least, they should 
rejoice with Him. It istheir nature that is seated 
on the throne, their rights that are thus secured, 
their prosperity that is thus guaranteed. And 
yet, though proclamation had been made of the 
coming festivities, though due invitation had been 
given, and though, finally, John had been sent to 
say that now all things were ready and to herald 
the bridegroom in visible form through their 
streets, the people had listened with dead indiffer- 
ence, as if it had been a kingdom in the moon 
that was spoken of, and as if God had wholly mis- 
taken in supposing that such an event had any 
bearing at all on them or their interests. 

This union of God and man that is as natural 
as love, and as supernatural as God—this union, 
consummated in Christ, is the foundation of our 
hope. Apart from this we may find some little 
help in the hour of temptation, some faint glim- 
mering of hope in the time of trouble, but nothing 
that can quite satisfy and bring to us a perfect 
light—nothing that can give us God, the Highest 
of all, the Eternal, the Almighty, the unfailing 


Ig0 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Love and Life. Jesus Christ blesses mankind not 
by His superior moral teaching mainly, nor only 
by His giving us a clearer knowledge of God than 
other teachers have done, but by His bringing 
God into human life, by showing us our God suf- 
fering with and for us, by bringing God to work 
among us and in our place, and thus to lift 
humanity, by a power Divine, to its highest level. 
It is by bringing thus a new thing into the world, 
the fulness of God into human life, that He has 
done that which no one but He could do, and 
which merits the gratitude of every man. He 
has thus become the true Bridegroom of men, the 
joy and help of usall. That was a memorable 
expression of Napoleon’s when he said, “ Jesus 
Christ has succeeded in making of every human 
soul an appendage to His own.” He has made 
Himself the indispensable person to us all—the 
indispensable “ fellow-worker with each man in 
the realization of his supreme destiny.” 

The earnest sincerity of God in seeking our 
good in this matter is illustrated in the parable 
by one or two unmistakable traits—first, by the 
king’s willing observance of every form of court- 
esy. Among ourselves there are certain forms, 
an etiquette, which a host who is anxious to 
please his guests is carefulto conform to. There 
are ways of putting an invitation which make it 
almost impossible even for the reluctant to with- 
hold acceptance. In the East one of these forms 


—— 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’s SON. Ig! 


is the sending of a second messenger to announce 
the actual readiness of the feast. In countries 
where no memoranda are written, and where no 
fixed hours are observed or appointed, such a 
final and second invitation is almost necessary ; 
or, if not necessary, does at least pleasantly dis- 
play the cordiality ofthe host. To this form God 
condescended. He not only sent invitations by 
the prophets, bidding the Jews expect this festiv- 
ity, but when it was ready He sent John to re- 
mind them and to bring them. So it is always. 
Because God is so true in His purpose to bless 
you, therefore is He most careful of all your feel- 
ings, picking each smallest stone out of your path 
that might cause you to stumble and take offense, 
leaving the reluctant without apology. God does 
not invite you to what has no existence, nor to 
what is not worth going so far to get, nor on 
terms it is impossible to fulfil, nor in such a man- 
ner that no man who respects himself can accept 
it. On the contrary, what God offers you is that 
in which He Himself rejoices. He offers you 
fellowship with His own Son, He offers you 
righteousness and love, and He offers this to you 
with the observance of every form that could 
prove consideration of your feelings, and ina way 
which involves that every one who really wishes 
to be blessed will receive all the help he requires 
in striving to beso. Another proof of the earnest- 
ness of God in His invitation is His wrath against 


192 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


the murderers who had refused it. You are not 
much offended at one who refuses an invitation 
you have given in jest, or for form’s sake, half 
hoping it would not be accepted. God is angry 
because you have treated in jest and made light 
of what has been most earnest to Him; because 
you have crossed Himin the sincerest purpose to 
bless you; because after He has at the greatest 
expense, not only of wealth and exertion, but of 
life, provided what He knows you need, you act 
towards Him as if He had done nothing that de- 
serves the least consideration. This acceptance 
or rejection of God’s offers that we come and 
talk over, often as if the whole matter were in our 
hands and we might deal with it as we arrange 
for a journey or an evening’s amusement, is to 
God the most earnest matter. If God is in 
earnest about anything, it is about this; if the 
whole force of His nature concentrates on any 
one matter it is on this; if anywhere the ampli- 
tude and intensity of Divine earnestness, to 
which the most impassioned human earnestness 
is as the idle vacant sighing of the summer air, 
if these are anywhere in action, it is the tender- 
ness and sincerity with which He invites you to 
Himself. There may be nothing so trivial as to 
be powerless to turn you from God’s message, 
but nothing is so important as to turn Him from 
seeing how you receive it. You may think His 
invitation the least interesting of all subjects, you 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON. 193 


may in point of fact scarcely ever seriously con- 
sider whether it is to be accepted or not, whether 
it is an invitation, whether you might act upon 
it, and why you do not—the whole matter of 
God’s offer to you may be unreal, but your answer 
is matter of God’s consideration, and nothing can 
so occupy Him as to turn His observation from 
you. No glad tidings from any other part of His 
government can so fill His ear as to drown your 
sullen refusal of His grace. To save sinners from 
destruction is His grand purpose, and success in 
other parts of His government does not repay 
Him for failure here. And to make light of such 
an earnestness as this, an earnestness so wise, 
so called for, so loving, pure, and long suffering, 
so Divine, is terrible indeed. To have been the 
object of such earnest love, to have had all the 
Divine attributes and resources set in motion to 
secure my eternal bliss, and to know myself ca- 
pable of making light (making light !) of such ear- 
nestness as this, this surely is to be in the most 
forlorn and abject condition that any creature 
can reach. 

The last scene in this parable comes upon us un- 
expectedly, and forms indeed an appendix intro- 
ducing a new lesson, and directed toa special sec- 
tion inthe audience. No doubt our Lord per- 
ceived that parables such as He had been uttering 
were open to misconstruction. Ill-living and god- 
less persons, coarse, covetous, and malicious men 

13 


194 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


might be led to fancy that it mattered very little 
how they had lived, or what they were. They 
saw that the gates of the kingdom were thrown 
open, that all indiscriminately were invited to en- 
ter, that God made no distinction, saying to one, 
“T cannot forget your former neglect,” toanother, 
“TI do not wish your presence,”’.to a third, “ You 
are too far gone in sin, I do not invite you.” It 
had been made quite clear to them by these par- 
ables that they themselves were as free to enter 
the kingdom as those religious men they had 
been accustomed to consider so much more in 
God’s favor than they were. This perception of 
the absolute unconditioned freedom of entrance, 
this sense borne in upon their mind that they 
were the objects of God’s love and invitation, 
might possibly lead them to overlook the great 
moral change requisite in all who enter God’s pres- 
ence and propose to hold intercourse with Him. 
It is to disabuse them of the idea that the ac- 
ceptance of God’s invitation entails no alteration 
in their habits and spirit, that this appendix is 
added. ; 

This object is gained by setting beforethem an 
instance in which one who accepted the invitation 
was convicted of a contempt of the host even 
greater than that which was involved in rejecting 
his invitation. He entered the banqueting hall 
without a wedding garment, appeared at the 
King’s table in just the dress in which he had 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 195 


been found in the streets by the servants. But 
had he any means of obtaining a dress more in 
keeping with the occasion? Was he not perhaps 
a man so poor that he could afford no preparation 
of any kind? Had this been so, it would have 
been pleaded in excuse. But no doubt the par- 
able supposes that the not unusual custom of pro- 
viding for the guests the needed garment had 
been adopted ; a provision which this guest had 
despised and refused; he had pushed past the 
- officious servants who would have clothed him. 
It is this that constituted the man’s audacity and 
guilt. Similar audacity in entering the king’s 
presence without putting on the robe sent by the 
king for that purpose, has been known to cost a 
prime minister his life. A traveler who was in- 
vited, with the ambassadors he accompanied, to 
the table of the Persian king, says :—“‘ We were 
told by the officer that we, according to their 
usage, must hang the splendid vests that were sent 
us from the king over our dresses, and so appear 
in his presence. The ambassadors at first refused, 
but the officer urged it so earnestly, alleging, as 
also did others, that. the omission would greatly 
displease the king, since all other envoys observed 
such a custom, that at last they consented, and 
hanged, as did we also, the splendid vests over 
their shoulders.’ So at this marriage, dresses had 
been provided by the king. The guests who had 
been picked off the streets were not told to go 


196 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


home and do the best they could for their dress, 
but in the palace, in the vestibule of the banquet- 
hall each man was arrayed in the dress the king 
wished to see worn.—Possibly this man who de- 
clined the offered garment had a dress of his own 
he grudgedtocover. Possibly he thought he was 
as well dressed as need be. He would stroll in 
superciliously as a patron or spectator, thinking it 
very fit for those poor, coarse-clothed and dirty 
people to make use of the king’s wardrobe, but 
conscious of no speck nor uncleanlinesss in his 
own raiment that should cause him to make any 
alteration of it. 

Neither is this a formal and artificial custom 
representing a formal and artificial method of 
judging men. In point of fact this rejection 
of the marriage-dress is proof of alienation of 
spirit, disaffection, want of sympathy with the 
feelings of the king. The man whocould refuse 
the festive dress on such an occasion must lack 
the festive spirit, and is therefore a “ spot in the 
feast.” It is a real and internal, not a merely for- 
mal and external distinction that exists between 
him and the rest of the guests. He sits there out 
of harmony with the spirit of the occasion, de- 
spising the exultation and mirth of his neighbors, 
and disloyal to hisking. Thereforeis his punish- 
ment swift and severe. The eye of the king that 
travels round the tables and carries welcome and 
hearty recognition, gladdening all his loyal sub. 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’S SON. 197 


jects, is suddenly arrested upon this unseemly, 
audacious, unjustifiable intruder. As every guest 
turns to see the cause of the changed expression 
in the face that lights up the whole feast, there 
with head that would, but cannot, hang, with hor- 
ror-stricken eye riveted upon the face of the king, 
stands the despiser of the wedding-garment— 
speechless—all his guilt and easy confidence gone, 
fearful misgivings sliding into his heart, quailing 
and fainting beneath that just and pitiful eye that 
empties him of all self-deceit, of all self-con- 
fidence, of all untruth. He welcomesthe attend- 
ants who hurry him from the gaze of the as- 
sembled guests and the brilliant lights of the hall; 
but not the outer darkness of an Eastern street, 
not the pitchy blackness in which he lies unseen 
and helpless, can hide him from that gaze of His 
Lord which he feels to be imprinted on his con- 
science for evermore. It is that which pursues 
him, that which makes him outcast from all con- 
solation and all hope, that he has alienated his 
Lord, has been branded by his king, has forfeited 
the approval and favor of Him whose recognition 
and fellowship carry with them all joy, and hope, 
and blessing. 

Does this man’s conduct signify anything to 
ourselves? Does his doom cover any great truth 


_ that concerns ourselves? How idle it seems to 





ask the question. Is there any commoner way 
of dealing with God’s invitation than that which 


198 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


this man adopted? He had no deep love for his 
king, no grateful and humbling sense of his kind. 
ness, no perception of what was due to him, but 
with the blundering stupidity of godlessness, 
thought selfishness would carry him through, and 
ran right upon his doom. What is commoner 
than this self-complacency, this utter blindness 
to the fact that God is holy, and that holiness 
must therefore be the rule everywhere; what is 
commoner than the feeling that we are well 
enough, that we shall somehow pass muster, that 
as we mean to take our places among the heavenly 
guests we shall surely not beejected? How hard 
it is for any of us fully to grasp the radical nature 
of the inward change that is required if we are to 
be meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. 
Conformity to God, ability to rejoice with God 
and in God, humble and devoted reverence, a 
real willingness to do honor to the King’s Son, 
these are great attainments ; but these constitute 
our wedding-garment, without which we cannot > 
remain in His presence nor abide His searching 
gaze. It will come to be a matter between each 
one of you singly and Him, and it is the heart 
you bear towards Him that will determine your 
destiny. No mere appearance of accepting His — 
invitation, no associating of yourself with those 
who love Him, no outward entrance into His pres- 
ence, no making use of the right language is any- 
thing to the purpose. What is wanted is a pro- 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING'S SON. 199 


found sympathy with God, a real delight in what 
is holy, a radical acceptance of His will,—in other 
words, and as the most untutored conscience 
might see, what is wanted is a state of minc-in 
you which God can delight in, and approve of, 
and hold fellowship with. To His table, to His 
everlasting company, to Himself and His love He 
invites you, and in order to accept this, the only 
invitation He gives (for there are no degrees, no 
outer and inner circles, no servants made of those 
who will not be friends)—in order to accept this 
invitation, or in the acceptance of it, acceptance 
of God, of His spirit, character, and ways is 
necessary. There is no real acceptance of the 
invitation, no abiding entrance into God’s favor 
where there is no growing likeness to God ; with- 
out this it is mere word and _ self-deception. 
“ Know ye not that the unjust shall not inherit 
the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither 
fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor 
effeminate, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunk- 
ards, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit 
the kingdom of God.” 

For “many are called, but few chosen.” To 
all of us the invitation comes; there is no man 
whom God does not desire to see enjoying His 
bounty. There is no question about the invita- 
tion—you have it—good and bad alike are invited, 
and yet even among those who seem to accept it, 
there is sometimes lacking that which can alone 


200 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


give them a permanent place in His presence and 
favor. There is no real sympathy with God, no 
pleasure in those matters which He deems im- 
portant, no similarity of spirit—in a word, no real 
goodness. This is a state of spirit which will one 
day develop into a consciousness that we have 
nothing in common with God. 

But, in conclusion, there is abundant encourage- 
ment in this parable to all who are willing and 
desirous to put on the Lord Jesus. As the poor 
people picked up by the servants of the king 
would have felt very awkward about their dress, 
and could not in decency have accepted the in- 
vitation had they not been assured thata suitable 
dress would be given them; so should we feel 
very awkward indeed, if, when summoned into 
God’s presence, there should remain in us any- 
thing to make us feel out of place, uneasy, 
fearful. But the invitation itself guarantees the 
provision of all that follows it. It is the first 
business of every host to make his guest feel at 
home, and therefore does God provide us not only 
with great outward blessings, but with all that 
can make us feel easy and glad in His presence. 
Fellowship with Him is indeed reverential, for 
He is our King: but being our Father there will 
be in it also more of the exuberant delight of a 
family gathering than of the stiffness of a formal 
state banquet throughout which we long for the 
termination, or are hindered from all enjoy- 


THE MARRIAGE OF THE KING’s SON. 201 


ment through fear of doing something out of 
place. 

Though, therefore, there are many called but 
few chosen, there is no reason why you should 
not be among the few. For God not only offers 
enjoyment, but also power to enjoy. If you 
could not be easy in God’s presence without great 
alterations in your character, these alterations will 
be made. The dona fide invitation is your guar- 
antee that they will be made. If you could not 
be easy in God’s presence without knowing that 
He was fully aware of all you had thought and 
done against Him, and forgave it you; if you 
could not eat at the table of one against whom 
you harbored ill-will ; if you could not enjoy any- 
thing in company thoroughly uncongenial, whose 
conversation was all of subjects quite uninterest- 
ing to you; if you are conscious that in order to 
enjoy any entertainment the prime requisite is 
that you have a genuine admiration and love for 
the host—then this will all be communicated to you 
on your acceptance of God’s invitation. Do you 
always feel that God’s holiness is too high and 
distant for fellowship? But consider how Christ 
drew men and women to Him. No one ever 
created such a passion of devoted love as He. 
Consider Him and you will at length learn to 
think more wisely of holiness. Are you conscious 
that your habitual leanings and likings are earthly, 
that as yet you are more at home in other com- 


202 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


panies than in God’s? Does your unfitness even 
more than your unworthiness deter you—does 
your want of ability to find your joy in God alarm 
you more than your guilt? Still you see here 
that God invites you as you are, and those whom 
He casts out are only those who have so fond a 
confidence in themselves as to think they are fit 
enough for His presence as they stand. 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 
MATT. XXV. I-13. 


THE prolonged discourse of which this parable 
forms a striking part was uttered in reply to a 
very natural question which the disciples had put 
to our Lord. In ignorance of what was chiefly 
engaging His thoughts, and in simple-minded, 
rustic admiration of the metropolis, they had 
been taking Him round to show Him the marvels 
of the now completed temple. And well might 
they expect to hear their own exclamations of 
surprise and overwhelming admiration echoed 
from every one who in their day “ walked about 
Zion” and marked her bulwarks, or gazed on the 
astounding pile of marble that crowned the oppo- 
site summit of Moriah. Buildings of similar 
magnificence were scarcely elsewhere to be seen. 
It can scarcely have been with cold contempt for 
those stupendous architectural works, but rather 
with deep sorrow and compassion that our Lord, 
after silently gazing upon them, or entering with 
sympathy into the enthusiasm of his companions, 
at last let fall the unexpected word, “ Verily I 


say unto you there shall not be left here one 
203 


204 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


stone upon another, that shall not be thrown 
down.” It was inevitable that the disciples 
should eagerly desire to know when this catas- 
trophe was to occur. “Tell us when shall these 
things be, and what shall be the sign of Thy 
coming and of the end of the world.” 

Our Lord’s reply to this question is, that the 
day and the hour of His coming are known to 
the Father only, and that therefore the only way 
to be prepared for that hour is to be always ready, 
prepared for any hour and every hour. This is 
the lesson which He means the parable to con- 
vey, and which He expressly draws in the words, 
“ Watch, therefore, for ye know neither the day 
nor the hour when the Son of man cometh.” 
And we must beware of pressing this or any par- 
able to say more than it was meant to say. We 
get what it was intended to give when by its 
vivid imagery we are practically aroused to the 
necessity of being always prepared for our Lord's 
coming. We may therefore dismiss a great deal 
of minute allegorizing and searching for hidden 
meanings in little turns of expression and para- 
bolic accessories with the words of one of the Re- 
formers who says, ‘“‘It is nothing at all to the 
purpose to speculate and refine about virginity 
and lamps and oil and those who sell oil. These 
refined speculations are the trifles of allegorizers. 
But the one idea that is of moment is, that they 
who are really prepared shall enter into the joy 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 205 


of the Lord, while the unprepared shall be ex- 
cluded.” Or we may say with Calvin himself :— 
“Some expositors torment themselves greatly in 
explaining the /amps, and the vessels, and the o7/ ; 
but the simple and genuine meaning of the whole 
is just this, that it is not enough to have a lively 
zeal for a while. We must have in addition a 
perseverance that never tires.” 

Neither need we spend time onthe customs 
from which the parable drawsitsimagery. Let it 
suffice to read the words of one of the most ac- 
curate describers of what is to be seen in India. 
“ At a marriage,” he says, ‘the procession of 
which I saw some years ago, the bridegroom came 
from a distance, and the bride lived at Serampore, 
to which place the bridegroom was to come by 
water. After waiting two or three hours, at 
length, near midnight, it was announced, as if in 
the very words of Scripture, “ Behold the bride- 
groom cometh, go ye out to meet him.” All the 
persons employed now lighted their lamps, and 
ran with them in their hands to fill up their 
stations in the procession. Some of them had 
lost their lights, and were unprepared ; but it was 
then too late to seek them, and the cavalcade 
moved forward to the house of the bride, at which 
place the company entered a large and splendidly 
illuminated area before the house covered withan 
awning, where a great multitude of friends, dressed 
in their best apparel, were seated upon mats. 


206 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


The bridegroom was carried in the arms of a 
friend, and placed upon a superb seat in the midst 
of the company, where he sat a short time, and 
then went into the house, the door of which was 
immediately shut, and guarded by sepoys. I and 
others expostulated with the doorkeepers, but in 
vain. Never was I so struck with our Lord's 
beautiful parable as at this moment : and the door 
was shut.” 

This imagery so familiar to our Lord’s hearers 
was used on this occasion to illustrate chiefly 
these three things: the meaning of our Lord’s 
command to watch; its reason ; and the means of 
fulfilling it. It illustrates the meaning of the 
command ; showing us that it does not mean, “ Be 
ye always on the watch,” but “Be always pre- 
pared.” The fisherman’s wife who spends her 
time on the pier-head watching for the boats, 
cannot be so well prepared to give her husband 
a comfortable reception as the woman who is 
busy about her household work, and only now 
and again turns a longing look seaward. None 
of the virgins were on the watch for the bride- 
groom, but some of them were nevertheless pre- 
pared for His coming. It is impossible for us to 
be always looking out for the coming of Christ, 
but it is quite possible to be prepared for His 
coming. Our life is to bear evidence that one of 
the things we take into account is the approach 
of our Lord. 


° 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 207 


2. It illustratesalsothe reason of the command. 
No one can tell when this second great interrup- 
tion of the world’s even course is to take place. 
It may be nearer than some expect; or as the 
parable shows, it may be more distant than some 
expect. The expectation of a speedy termination 
of things which so largely prevailed in the first 
Christian generation might have been moderated 
by the wide circulation of this parable. The 
virgins who neglected to carry reserve-flasks of 
oil were those who expected the bridegroom would 
soon appear. They did not anticipate a long 
delay ; they made no provision for continuance. 
Had the hour been a fixed one they would have 
been prepared, but they were betrayed by its un- 
certainty. And no doubt if any one could say 
with authority, ‘“‘ The Lord isto come on Tuesday 
first,’ a very large number of persons would at 
once prepare as best they could to meet Him. 
If the belief really grew up within them that on 
a certain day not far distant they must face their 
Lord, that belief would certainly produce a mul- 
titude of thoughts, and some efforts at prepara- 
tion. It is, then, after all, your baseless sup- 
position that the Lord will not come quickly that 
betrays you into carelessness. This parable as- 
sures you you have no ground for saying, “ My 
Lord delayeth His coming.” You really do not 
know how near He is. 

And if any one feels, “‘ Well, this then comes 


208 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to no more than an appeal to fear. The appeal 
made by the parable is grounded on the assump- 
tion that Christians will be better men, and do 
more if they expect to be quickly summoned into 
Christ’s presence,”—if this be felt, it can only be 
said in reply that fear is in many circumstances 
the equivalent of prudence, and a very wholesome 
motive; and further, that the expectation of 
Christ’s coming does not give rise only to fear, but 
also to hope; that it braces the Christian’s energies, 
and in accordance with human nature quickens 
the spiritual life. Or ifany one feels that to have 
stimulated all past generations with the expecta- 
tion of an event which did not after all occur, is 
artificial and unworthy, it should be enough to 
reflect that the beneficial system of insurance 
proceeds on principles to a large extent similar. 
3. The parable shows us how we are to prepare 
for meeting the Lord. We are to be prepared 
to join in the festal celebration of His coming. 
We are to be in a position to join with those who 
add luster to His presence, who give Hima hearty 
welcome, and who enter with Him into His joy. 
We are prepared for His coming if we are in the 
spirit of the occasion, and if we are furnished with 
what may fit us for suitably appearing in His 
company. The lamps of the virgins were meant 
tolend brilliancy to the scene ; they were intended 
as a festalillumination. The virgins whose lamps 
burned brightly were not ashamed to be seen 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 209 


forming part of the bridal company. They were 
in keeping with it. Conscience will tell us what 
numbers us among the wise or among the foolish. 
Everything in us that heartily welcomes Christ’s 
presence, and heartily rises to do Him honor ; 
everything about us that can reflect any brightness 
or glory on Him; everything that makes us better 
than blots and blacknesses in His retinue; every- 
thing that will seem a suitable accompaniment in 
the triumph of a holy Redeemer, is a preparation 
for Christ’s coming. 

The parable is not addressed to those who have 
never made any preparation for Christ’s coming, 
but to those who have not made sufficient prep- 
aration. It reminds us that all who may at one 
time show similar preparedness for Christ’s pres- 
ence do not in the end show the same. Of those 
who start with similar intentions and similar ex- 
ternal appearance a number fail to fulfil their orig- 
inal intention, and in the end belie their promising 
appearance. Itis the same everywhere: insevere 
marches, prolonged and fatiguing enterprises and 
labors, a number always tail off and are not forth- 
coming at the final muster. The number who 
at any period of their life really go forthto meet 
their Lord, delighting to do Him honor and 
seeking His presence, may not be very large; but 
it ismuch larger than the number who maintain 
their preparedness to the end. The reason of 
this so frequent failure is here declared. The folly 

14 


210 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


of the foolish virgins consisted in this, that while 
the wise took oil, they tooknone: that is to say, 
made no provision against any delay in the time 
of the Bridegroom’s appearance. They lit their 
lamps, but made no provision for feeding them : 


the flame was to all appearance satisfactory, but — 


the source of it was defective. And without 
running the figure too hard, we may say that 
those who in the end of their life fail to show as 
much fitness for Christ’s presence as they did at 
some previous period, fail because they have been 
all along superficial and have never been filled 
with grace at the source, have not had the root of 
the matter in them. 

The foolish virgins, then, are a warning to all 
who are tempted to make conversion everything, 
edification nothing; who cultivate religion fora 
season and then think they have done enough; 
who were religious once, can remember the time 
when they had very serious thoughts, and very 
solemn resolutions, but who have made no earnest 
effort, and are making none, to maintain within 
themselves the life they once began. The wise are 
those who recognize that they must have within 
them that which shall enable them to endure to 
the end—not only impressions, right impulses, 
tender feelings, but ineradicable beliefs and prin- 
ciples which will at all times produce all right 
impulse and feeling. It is not in vain that our 
nature is made as it is made. In body and soul 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 211 


things are so ordered that one part aids and feeds 
another part. Without a good digestion no other 
function can be thoroughly well performed ; as 
well performed as it might be. And in our spirit- 
ual nature, our feelings and impulses are nour- 
ished by our beliefs and perceptions. If we recog- 
nize the truth, if we have come to an assured and 
settled conviction that Christ has lived, and that 
He now lives, if our perceptions and beliefs are 
bringing us in contact with the truth, with Christ, 
and with things unseen, then we may expect to 
continue to the end. 

Another point may be accepted from this part 
of the Parable: that there must be regard paid 
both to the outward and inward life. The vessel 
of oil is not enough without the burning lamp; 
nor the lamp merely lighted and with no supply 
of oil. There is a something which makes you 
worthy of entering with Christ into lasting joy. 
And this something is not an exhibition of the 
external marks of a Christian, neither is it the 
certainty that once you had inward grace; but it 
is the continuous maintenance, to the end, both 
of the outward works which manifest, and of the 
inward graces which are the life of a Christian. 
The inward life of the soul and the outward ex- 
pression of that life bear to one another an es- 
sential relation. On the one hand, if you do not 
constantly renew your supply of grace, if you do 
not carefully see to the condition of your own 


212 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


spirit, your good works will soon become less fre- 
quent, less sincere, and less lovely: your flame 
will burn low. But, on the other hand, if you 
tend only the life of your own soul, if you seek 
only to possess as much grace as possible for 
yourself, if you ask for the Holy Spirit and yet 
do none of those things in which the Spirit would 
naturally express Himself, if you do not let your 
light shine before and upon men in the actual 
circumstances you are placed in, then you will 
soon find that your internal life begins to stag- 
nate and corrupt. 

To a healthy Christian life these two things 
are essential. A vessel of oil is, in itself, of no 
use onadark night. The oil is not light, and 
might as well be water unless a light be added. 
And a burning wick which lasts only for half a 
minute, is only disappointing and tantalizing. A 
Christian must not only feel right but do right; 
and must not only do right but feel right. To 
be filled with the Spirit you have but to pray. 
You cannot manufacture nor create that which 
can sustain your spiritual life: God only can give 
it, and give it He does, gladly and liberally, in 
answer to your requests. And having the Spirit 
you must use Him; letting your light shine not 
so as to show yourself more conspicuously, but 
so as to help on others in their dark and doubt- 
ful way through this life; by dealing fairly with 
them, by being generous and considerate, by 


a 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 213 


doing the best you can for every one you have 
to do with in any capacity. 

This is the reason why many of us feel slightly 
jarred in spirit when we hear converts rising in a 
confession-meeting one after another and saying, 
“JT was saved last Wednesday night,” “I was 
saved on the 18th February,” “I was saved on 
the 12th March,” and soon. It is not that we 
do not believe that they are speaking the truth, 
but that we know that they have yet to be tested 
by life. We rejoice with them because they have 
found their Saviour; we tremble for them be- 
cause we know that they have yet to work out 
their own salvation through years of temptation. 
All that their confession means is, that their lamp 
is lit, but how long it will burn is quite another 
question. They are merely in the condition of 
the ten virgins as they first went out, and only 
time can show whether they have oil or not. 
They may have been able to rejoice in Christ at 
a given hour last week or last month, and may 
at that hour have risen to greet Him, and there 
is nothing wrong in their declaring that such has 
been the case: but their trial has yet to take 
place ; it has yet to be discovered whether, when 
many years have passed, they shall still be found 
rejoicing in Him. For in many cases it would 
appear as if conversion and salvation were looked 
upon as equivalents: in many cases there is a 
lack of soberminded counting of the cost, and a 


214 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


jubilation of spirit which would be more becom- 
ing at the close of the long fight of faith than at 
its commencement. You may say you are saved 
when you fairly put yourself into Christ’s hand; 
but you must also remember that then your sal- 
vation is only beginning, and that you cannot, 
in the fullest sense, say you are saved until Christ 
has wrought in you a perfect conformity to Him- 
self. 

This being the distinction between the wise and 
foolish virgins, that which brings it to light is 
that the Bridegroom did not come while all the 
lamps were yet burning, and that during His 
delay they all slumbered and slept. This seems 
to mean no more than that all, having made such 
preparation as they judged sufficient “ calmly and 
securely waited the approach of the Bridegroom.” 
There can scarcely be any more than this meant 
by the sleep; nothing which would make the 
sleep culpable on the part of the wise, for we do 
not find that any evil consequence whatever fol- 
lowed to them; rather they would be all the 
fresher for their rest, the better prepared to enter 
on the joy. But the security which is excusable, 
and the repose which is necessary to one condi- 
tion, is in anotherutter madness. Unconstrained 
mirth, eager pursuit of business, is one thing in 
the man who has just examined his books and 
made arrangements to meet all claims, but it is 
quite another thing in him who has madeno such 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 215 


arrangements and does not know whether he can 
meet his engagements. Soit is one thing toturn 
away your attention from the person and coming 
of Christ when you have made sure you are pre- 
pared to meet Him, and altogether another thing 
to turn your attention to other things in mere 
thoughtless security. It is one thing to engage 
in the business of this life, knowing that though 
your Lord find you in it, you have what will 
enable you to meet Him, the graces then required 
being really in you and ready to show themselves, 
though not at present called into exercise by the 
calculation, or the plan, or the work you are en- 
gaged in for the hour; but it is wholly another 
thing to plunge into the world’s business without 
having once considered whether you have given 
sufficient attention to your preparedness for that 
event which may interrupt any day’s business, or 
without keeping up a constant examination of 
the inward life of your spirit. 

But we may learn from the slumber of the wise, 
as wellas fromthe rash sleep of the foolish. There 
is a kind of sleep in which the sense of hearing, 
at least, is on the alert, and when by a skilful dis- 
crimination unattainable when awake, the sense 
takes note only of the one sound it waits for, so 
that the sound of a distant and watched-for foot- 
step arouses to the keenest wakefulness. If you 
look on these weary, slumbering virgins, you see 
the lamps firmly grasped, and when you try to 


216 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


unclasp the slumbering but faithful fingers, every 
faculty is at once on the alert. Other noises do 
not awaken them, but before the cry, ‘‘ The Bride- 
groom cometh” has ceased to echo in the porch 
that shelters them, they stand erect and are trim- 
ming their lamps. So should it be with us; 
whatever necessary occupation, whatever neces- 
sary saturation of our minds with the thoughts of 
this world’s property, turns our direct attention 
from the approach of our Lord, there should still 
be an openness of sense in His direction, a settled 
persuasion that it is His voice that must be heark- 
ened to, a predisposedness to attend rather to 
Him if He should call, an inwrought though latent 
expectation of His coming, a consciousness, which 
but a whisper will arouse, that what we are here 
for is not to slumber, not to do what we might as 
well or better do anywhere else and with no hope 
of our Lord’s coming, but still to meet Him. 
Through all the sleep of these virgins, dream 
would be chasing dream, they would be seeing 
bridal processions, gorgeous with all the gay and 
fantastic adornment which the closed eye so clearly 
sees, hearing sackbut and dulcimer and all kinds 
of music, and ever and anon starting to hear if 
the cry, ‘‘ The Bridegroom cometh” were not real 
and summoning themselves. So through all the 
occupations of a Christian in which he is not 
watching for his Lord and trimming his lamp, 
there is, or should be, an under-current of expec- 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 217 


tation, ever keeping him in unconscious prepared- 
ness, occasionally roused into actual looking out 
to see. Heis notalways gazing forward, but ever 
and anon sends a messenger from the inmost 
citadel of his soul to inquire, ‘Watchman, what 
of the night ?” 

While they are thus all slumbering, and when 
their sleep is deepest, when the fatigue of watching 
is most felt, when things are stillest, and men count 
upon a few hours quiet and deliverance from care, 
“at midnight,” the cry is heard, “ Behold, the 
Bridegroom cometh!’’ And now the difference 
between the really and apparently prepared is 
manifested. There is something terrible in the 
security of the foolish maintained up to the last. 
They, too, arise and trim their lamps; even 
though there is nothing but a quenched, foul wick 
yet they seem to think still that matters are not so 
bad. They have but to ask oil of their pleasant 
companions. Not yet are they aware that their 
fate is already sealed. And this sudden and ap- 
palling reversal of their hopes, this mingling at a 
marriage feast of exultant joy andthe most mel- 
ancholy and calamitous ruin, seems intended to 
fix in our minds an idea opposite to, and that 
should extirpate the idle fancy that things some- 
how will come all right ; that there is no real need 
of all this urgent warning and watching; that in 
a world governed by a good and loving God, and 
where things are going on now pretty tolerably 


218 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


and so very prosaically, there cannot occur those 
startling, unnatural, desolating events predicted 
in God’s word. It seemsso fearful and incredible 
a thing that a world men take so lightly and joy- 
ously should be quietly leading them on to eternal 
ruin, that men maintain their easy disposition to 
the last, and cannot believe that out of a life that 
may be jested or trifled away, consequences so 
lasting and so awful can possibly flow. Many 
things are needed to drive this security out of us, 
and many things are given us for this end. The 
virgins go out with no thought but of festivity, 
enjoyment, and happy excitement; five of them, 
before the night is gone, are found and left in the 
bitterest sorrow and self-reproach. “ They that 
were ready went in tothe marriage, and the door 
was shut.” 

In these words one seems to hear the decisive, 
final doom of the lost. The crash of the heavy 
dungeon door and the retiring footsteps are not 
more sickening to the heart of him that is left to 
die of hunger, than the heavy, sudden closing of 
this door that shuts in the saved and shuts out 
the lost. As the feeling of comfort inside the 
house increases when the storm howls around and 
shakes it, as if seeking an entrance that it cannot 
find, so does the misery of those left outside in- 
crease when they hear the sound of revelry and 
mirth, and see the warm lights thrown out on the 
darkness. They look round despairingly as the 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 219 


storm begins to rise, as the first moan of the 
gathering tempest nears and lights upon them, 
and warns them, as if in pity, of the blasts that 
follow as if in anger. But once the door is shut 
no piteous clamor outside can open it. No sense 
of the awful state of things outside, no willing- 
ness now to be within, avails to force it back 
upon its hinges. Every voice that wails for en- 
trance is still met by the same chilling, hopeless 
reply, “I know you not.” A new thing it is for 
that door to be shut. So long has it stood open, 
thrown wide back, that we forget there is a door 
that can shut that entrance; that it is not more 
useful now to let in, than one day to keep out. 
But the time comes when whosoever will shall not 
be saved ; when it will be vain pointing men to 
the door; when whosoever is outside, there re- 
mains. And this time may be before you rise 
from where you now sit. No mancan say it shall 
not. He who feels it most unfair to be hedged 
up thus to an hour, to be told it is unsafe and un- 
reasonable to delay even so long, cannot assert 
that the end is further distant. To-day the door 
is open, to-morrow it may be too late to seek en- 
trance. The hand that closes it may already be 
laid upon it. 

It is foolishness, not wickedness, that is repre- 
hended in these virgins—that is to say, in those 
who are represented by them. The wise man is 
he who shapes his conduct in accordance with the 


220 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


truth of things and with actual facts; the foolish 
man is he who shuts his eyes to what he does not 
wish to see, and fancies that somehow, though he 
can’t tell how, things will go all right with him. 
He is, in fact, the ostrich who buries his head in 
the sand and fancies he has escaped because he 
has shut his eyes to what is hostile. The man 
who makes no preparation for the future isa 
foolish man. He may explain it to himself as he 
pleases, but to attempt an explanation is only to 
give further proof of his foolishness. He may 
see his way with perfect clearness a few paces 
before him, but if he does not see where it is to 
end, how can he tell whether he ought to go on 
even these few paces? The man who does not 
think, who does not consider whether he is pre- 
pared for the future or not, who does not seri- 
ously measure himself by every standard he can 
think of, and especially by the inevitable require- 
ments of God and eternity, is a foolish man. He 
may be clever, brilliant in talk and’ very enter- 
taining in company, he may be useful in business, 
he may be well-meaning, but he is foolish—has 
none of that wisdom which consists in seeing 
things as they actually are, and in conforming 
oneself to them. The man who at this present 
time is in point of fact leaving it to mere chance 
whether he is to be saved or lost, must surely 
feel that he is profoundly foolish. 

Let us then meet Christ’s intention in the par- 


THE TEN VIRGINS. 221 


able, and see that for our part we are prepared for 
His coming. Let us make sure that the little 
flame once kindled is not already burning low. 
Let us be sure that we are living in constant 
communication with the source of all spiritual 
life; that the very spirit of Christ dwells in us 
richly. Is there one who feels that things are 
not with him as they ought to be, and that he 
has declined from the glad preparedness he once 
enjoyed, or even that he has never attained toa 
state in which any luster could be thrown by him 
on the redeeming grace of Christ? To this per- 
son Christ speaks the parable. It isyou He longs 
to see providing yourself with the material of 
everlasting goodness and everlasting joy. There 
is a Spirit offered you through whom you can 
become pure and loving, capable of good, at peace 
with yourself and with God. What response do 
you make to Christ’s offers ? Are you to turn away 
and let it be possible that the next summons you 
hear may be: “Behold the Bridegroom cometh, 
go ye out to meet Him?” 


THE TALENTS. 
MATT. xxv. 14-30. 


THIS parable illustrates the great principle 
_ which regulates the distribution of rewards and 
punishments in the kingdom of God—the prin- 
ciple that men shall be judged according to the 
means at their disposal. The “talents” repre- 
“sent ‘everything over and above natural ability, by 
which men can advance the interests of the king- 
doth; Position, opportunities, and especially the 
measure of grace given to each man. All the 
interests of Christ upon earth are entrusted to His 
people. .He has distributed among us | all that 
He values upott€arth, Destroy from earth what 
men have and enjoy, and all that Christ prizes is 
gone. There is no interest of His carried for- 
ward without human labor; if His servants all 
cease to work, His cause on earth is at an end. 
And every servant of His is endowed with means 
enough to accomplish his own share in Christ’s 
work. He may not have as much as others. 
But to be fair, there must be little put in the 
hands of the servant who can only make use of a 


little, and much put at the disposal of him who 
222 


THE TALENTS. 223 


can manage a large amount. It is as easy—you 
may say—to make ten talents out of five, as to 
make four out of two; perhaps easier. Yes, if 
you choose the right man, but many a man who 
could make a small business pay, would ruin him- 
self ina big one. Each gets what each can con- 
veniently ¢ and effectively handle; and no one is 
expected to produce results which are quite out 
of proportion to his ability and his means. 

And in order that the judgment may be fair, 
the reckoning is not made until “after a long 
time.” We are not called upon to show fruit be- 
fore autumn. The servants are not summoned 
to the reckoning while yet embarrassed by the 
novelty of their position; time is allowed them 
to consider, to calculate, to wait opportunities, to 
make experiments. The Lord does not quickly. 
return in a captious spirit, but delays till the 
wise have had time to lay up great gains, and 
even the foolish to have learnt wisdom. So with 
ourselves: we cannot complain if strict account 
be taken at the end, because we really have time 
to learn how to serve our Lord. We have time 
to repair bad beginnings, to take thought, to 
make up in some degree for lost time. We are 
not hurried into mistakes and snatched to judg- 
ment, as if life were an ordeal we were passing 
through, where the slightest failure finishes our 
chances and is relentlessly watched for and in- 
sisted upon. We see well enough that with God 


224 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


it is quite otherwise ; that He wishes us to suc- 
ceed, will not observe our failures, winks at our 
shortcomings, and often repairs the ill we have 
done. 

It is not without significance that the servant 
who did nothing at all for his master, was he who 
had received but one talent. No doubt those 
who have great ability are liable to temptations 
of their own; they may be more ambitious, and 
may find it difficult to serve their master with 
means which they see would bring in to them- 
selves profits of a kind they covet. But such 
men are at all events not tempted to bury their 
talent. Thisis the peculiar temptation of the man 
who has little ability, and sullenly retires froma 
service in which he cannot shine and play a con- 
spicuous part. His ambition outruns his ability, 
and while he envies the position of others, he 
neglects the duties of his own. Because he can- 
not do as much as he would, he will not do as 
much ashe can. By showing no interest in that 
situation in life that God has seen fit he should 
fill, he would have us believe he is qualified fora 
higher. 

There are many to whom this hint of the par- 
able applies. You are in the same condemnation 
as this servant when you shrink from exercising 
your talent; because it is only one and a small 
one; when you refuse to do anything, because 
you cannot do a great deal; when you refuse to 





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THE TALENTS. 225 


help, where you cannot lead; when you hesitate 
about aiding in some work, because those with 
whom you would be associated in it do it better, 
and show better in the doing of it than yourself ; 
when you refuse to speak a word in behalf of 
Christ, because you could not satisfy your own 
taste, because you could not do it so well as some 
other pegson could; when you refuse to take 
some position, engage in some duty, be of some 
use in a certain department in which you would 
not excel, and would be recognized as surpassed 
by some others. This miserable fear of being 
mediocre, how many a good work has it prevented 
or crippled. If we wait till we are fully qualified 
to serve Christ, we shall never serve Him at all. 
“If we cannot stoop to learn to do great things by 
doing very little things, we shall never do great 
things. The only known way to becomea strong 
and full-grown man is to be first a little child. 

It is a true proverb that “the sluggard is wiser 
in his own eyes than seven men that can render 
a reason.” He can always justify his conduct. 
The insolence of this man’s words is not inten- 
tional. He reads off correctly his own state of 
mind, and fancies that his conduct was appro- 
priate and innocent. It was not his fault that his 
master was a man who struck terror into the 
hearts of his servants, and whom it was useless 
trying to please. And probably this man’s ac- 
count of the reason of his inactivity was accurate. 

=a 


226 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


All wrongness of conduct is at bottom based ona 
wrong view of God. Nothing so conduces to 
right action as right thoughts about God. }If we 
think with this servant that God is hard, grudg- 
ing to give and greedy to get, taking note of all 
shortcomings, but making no acknowledgment of 
sincere service, exacting the utmost farthing and 
making no abatement or allowance—if we one 
way or other virtually come to think that God 
never really delights in our efforts after good, and 
that whatever we attempt in our life He will 
coldly weigh and scorn, then manifestly we shall 
have no heart to labor for Him. 

But this view of God is unpardonably narrow, 
and the action flowing from it is after all incon- 
sistent. It is unpardonably wrong, and the very 
heartiness with which these other servants were 
greeted refutes it. You hear the hearty “ well 
done” ringing through the whole palace—there 
is no hesitating scrutiny, no reminding them they 
had after all merely done what it was their duty to 
do—not at all—it is the genial, generous outburst 
of a man who likes to praise and hates to find 
people at fault ; he has been hoping to get a good 
account of his servants, and it is far more joy in 
them than gratification in his increased-property 
that prompts this exclamation of surprise and 
delight and approval. He feels himself much 
richer in the fidelity of his servants than in their 
gains. He has pleasure in promoting them, in 


THE TALENTS. 227 


~and-person, and in making them thus share in his 
_own plans and arrangements and rule and joy. 
Moreover, not only is the view of the master 
wrong, but the consequent action, as the master 
points out, is inconsistent. If the master is so 
slow to recognize sincere effort, so oppressive in 
his exactions, demanding bricks where he has given 
no straw, requiring impossible performances, and 
measuring all work by an impossible standard, is 
this a reason for making no effort to conciliate 
him? If you feared that, in the necessary hazard 
of business, you might lose your lord’s talent, yet 
surely his anger would be as much aroused by 
inactivity as by unsuccessful efforts to serve him ? 
Why did you not at least put his money into the 
hands of men who would have found a use for it, 
and would have paid you a good interest? If 
you were too timid to use the trust your lord left 
you, if you knew too little of business and the 
world’s ways to veritture on any self-devised in- 
vestment, there were plenty of substantial genuine 
undertakings into which you might have put 
yourmeans. You could work under the guidance 
of some more masculine nature, who could direct 
and shelter you. 
There are numberless ways in which the most 
slenderly equipped among us can fulfil the sug- 
gestion here given, and put our talent to the ex- 
changers, into the hands of men who can use it. 


228 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


There is no lack of great works going on for our 
Lord to which we may safely attach ourselves, and 
in which our talent is rather used by the leaders 


- of the work, invested for us, than left to our own 


discretion. Just as inthe world there is such an 
endless variety of work needing to be done, that 
every one finds his niche, so there is no kind of 


ability that cannot be made use of in the kingdom 





re) ist. € parable wledge 
any servants who have absolutely nothing; some 
have little pared with others, but all have 


some me capacity to forward the interests of the ab- 


sent master. Ise every one of us practically rec- 
ognizing this—that there isa part of the work 
he is expected to do? He may seem to himself 
to have only one talent that is not worth speaking 
about, but that one talent was given that it might 
be used, and if it be not used, there will be some- 
thing lacking when reckoubae is made which 
might and ought to have been forthcoming. Cer- 
tainly there is something you can do, that is un- 
questionable ; there is something that needs to be 
done which precisely you can do, something by 
doing which you will please Him whose pleasure 
in you will fill your nature with gladness. It zs, 
given to you to increase your Lord’s goods, 

But the law which is exhibited in this parabolic 
representation is also explicitly announced in the 
words: “ For unto every one that hath shall be 
given, and he shall have abundance, but from him 


THE TALENTS, 229 


that hath not shall be taken away even that which 
he hath.” This may be called the law of Spiritual 
Capital. It isa law with the operation of which 
we are familiar in nature, and in the commercial . 
world. It is he who has even a little capital to 
begin with, and who makes a right use of it, who 
soon leaves far behind the man who has none, or 
who neglects to invest what he has. And the more 
thj ital grows, the more rapidly and the more 
easily is it increased. After a certain point, it 
seems to increase by virtue of its own momentum. 
So in certain sicknesses, as soon as the crisis of 
the disease is past and a little health has been 
funded again in the patient’s constitution, this rap- 
idly grows to complete recovery. So with pop- 
ularity, it begins one scarce knows how; but 
once begun, the tide flows apace. You may scarce- 
ly be able to say why one statesman or one au- 
thor should be so immeasurably more popular 
than others; but so it is, that when once a be- 
ginning is made, tribute flows in naturally, as 
waters from all sides settle in a hollow. It is the 
same with the acquirement of knowledge: the 
difficulty is to get past a certain point, it is all 
up-hill till then; but that point once gained, you 
reach the table lands and high levels of knowledge 
where you begin to see all round you, and infor. 
mation that has been fragmentary, and therefore 
useless before, now pieces itself together and rap- 
idly grows to complete attainment. Everything 


230 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


your hear or see now seems by a law of nature to 
contribute to the fund you have already acquired. 
It claims kindred with it, and unites itself to it. 
‘“’Tis the taught already that profits by teach- 
ing.” 

It is this same law which regulates our attain- 
ment in the service of Christ. However little 
grace we seem to have to begin with, it isthis we — 
must invest, and sonurse it into size and strength. 
Each time we use the grace we have by responding 
to the demands made upon it, it returns to us in- 
creased. Our capital grows by an inevitable law. 
The efforts of young or inexperienced Christians 
to give utterance to the life that is in them may 
often be awkward, like the movements of most 
young animals. They may be able to begin only 
in a very small way, so small a way that sensitive 
persons are frequently ashamed to begin at all. 
Having received Christ, they are conscious of 
new desires and of a new strength; they have a 
regard for Christ, and were they to assert this re- 
gard in the circumstances which call for its asser- 
tion, their regard would be deepened... They have 
a desire to serve Him, and were they to do so in 
those small matters with which they have daily 
concern, their desire and ability would be in- 
creased. Grace of any kind invested in the actual 
opportunities of life cannot come back to us as 
small as it was, but enlarged and strengthened. 

Such grace then as we have, such knowledge as 


THE TALENTS. 231 


we have of what is due to others, to ourselves, 
and to God, let us give free expression to. Such 
investments of Christian principle as are within 
our reach let us make; such manifestations of a 
Christian temper and mind as our circumstances 
daily demand let us exhibit, and it must come to 
pass that we increase in grace. /There is no other 
way whatever of becoming richly endowed in 
spirit than by trading with whatever we have to 
begin with. ) We cannot leap into a fortune in 
spiritual {ings ; rich saints cannot bequeath us 
what their life-long toil has won; they cannot 
even lend us so that we may begin on borrowed 
capital. In the spiritual life all must be genuine; 
we must work our own way upwards, and by 
humbly and wisely laying out whatever we now 
possess, make it more or be forever poor. i 
And yet how few avail themselves of this law, 
and lay up treasure in heaven. How few make 
great fortunes in the spiritual life. The mass of 
Christians never get even fairly started in a 
career which is at all likely to end in great saintli- 
ness of character and serviceableness. They act 
as if they had no capital of grace to begin with, 
no fund to trade upon; and they never make any 
more of it than they made the first week of their 
profession. They are not traders, every year in- 
creasing their stock and enlarging their gains, but 
they resemble men who receive a weekly wage, 
which is no more to-day than it was years ago, 


232 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Is it not worthy of remark that after years of 
prayer and of concernment with the fountain of 
all spiritual life, there should be so small a fund 
of it laid up within ourselves? Is it not the fact 
that we seem to be living from hand to mouth, on 
the verge of bankruptcy, with no more between 
us and spiritual starvation than the day we be- 
lieved? Are we conscious that our Christian 
principle has been deepening year by year? Can 
we count over our spiritual gains this day, and 
reckon up solid accumulations of grace in our 
character? Or are we still merely keeping the 
wolf from the door, and not always that? Are 
we making a bare ‘shift to get through without 
absolutely breaking down? Is it all we cando to 
make ends meet, and to keep up in our own souls 
the idea that we are servants of Christ? Do we 
feel as if they were the thinnest partition between 
us and great sin? Ina word, are we enriched 
with the “more abundance” of the well-doing 
servant, and do we find ourselves every way better 
equipped for all good work; or does even that 
which we once persuaded ourselves we had seem 
to be vanishing away? 

But the parable reminds us_that it is not only 
the careless who fail to use their talents to ad- 
vantage, but that the samé result sometimes 
follows from a deliberate but false conception of 
_the service of Christ. As in the world, there are 
many who prefer comfort to wealth, and have no 


THE TALENTS. 233 


ambition to rank as millionaires, so in the Christ- 
ian life many prefer what they conceive to be se- 
curity to eminent saintliness. They do not care 
about greatly increasing the godliness they al- 
ready have. They would like to have so much 
grace as would set them on the right hand, not on 
the left ; on the winning and not on the losing 
side; but they are not concerned to have an 
abundant entrance if only they get into the king- 
domat all’ They therefore make no thorough- 
going-effort to keep moving forwards, but rather 
avoid whatever would effectually commit them to 
a more devoted and self-sacrificing life. They 
rather repress the gracious feelings they have than 
seek to secure for them an increasing expression 
in their life. They see customs in business which 
they cannot approve, but they make no re- 
monstrance. They recognize circumstances in 
which a word of Christian advice might be bene- 
ficial, but they do not speak it. They decline 
to appeal to the highest motives of those around 
them. They do not pray in their families. They 
avoid all action which might give them a charac. 
acter for zeal. They seek to live a moderate, 
decent life. They seek to hit the mean, and tobe 
neither obviously godless nor to be righteous over 
much. They have some grace, but they do not 
circulate it and seek to make it more; they have 
a talent, but they bury it. 

Of such a method of dealing with our connec- 


234 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


tion with Christ, there is only one possible result. 
The unused talent passes from the servant who 
would not use it to the man who will. A land- 
lord has two farms lying together: the one is 
admirably managed, the other is left almost to 
itself, with the least possible management, and 
becomes the talk of the whole country-side for 
poor crops and untidiness. Noone asks what the 
landlord will do when the leases are out. It is 
a matter of course that he dismisses the careless 
tenant, and puts his farm into the hands of the 
skilful and diligent farmer. He enforces the great 
law: “To him that hath shall be given, and he 
shall have more abundance; but from him that 
hath not shall be taken even that he hath.” 

In the kingdom of Christ this law is self-acting. 
To bury our talent and so keep it as originally 
given is an impossibility. To have just so much 
grace and no more is an impossibility. It must 
either be circulating and so multiplying, or it 
ceases to be. It must grow, or it will die. You 
might as well try to keep your child always a 
child : he must either grow ordie. Inthe physical 
world the law has become familiar. The unused 
muscle dwindles and disappears: no one needs 
to come and remove it; want of use removes it. 
The ants whose habits of life enabled them to 
find food without the aid of sight have gradually 
lost the organ of sight itself. And so is it in the 
spiritual world also. The unused faculty becomes 


THE TALENTS. 235 


extinct. Hence it is that you see some old 
persons absolutely callous: the time was when 
they had at least a capacity for believing in divine 
things and for choosing God as their portion, but 
now you would say that the very capacity is des- 
troyed; no Godward emotion can find a place 
in their heart, nothing can stir a penitent thought 
inthem. Hence it is that in your own souls you 
perhaps are finding that, no matter what effort 
you make, you cannot enter as heartily into holy 
services and occupations as once you did, but are 
finding your old joy and assurance honey-combed 
by unbelieving thoughts. Hence it is that the 
susceptibility to right feeling you had in boyhood 
hasgonefromyou. Youdid not mean to become 
unfeeling, but only shrank from acting as feeling 
dictated. But he who blows out the flame, finds 
that the heat and the giow die out of themselves. 

The teaching of this side of the parable, then, 
is alarming in the extreme. The warning it con- 
veys proceeds not from an external voice we can 
defy or which may be mistaken, but from the 
laws of our nature; and it speaks not of an arbi- 
trary infliction of punishment, but of results which 
these laws renderinevitable. The unused faculty 
dies out. The capacities we have for loving and 
serving God are taken from us. That which was 
once possible becomes forever impossible. The 
future once open to us is closed. We are per- 
manently crippled, limited, paralyzed, deadened. 


230 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Had we followed the openings given to us, had 
we used the talent committed to us, endless ex- 
pansion and fulness of joy would have been ours, 
but now our chances are past. We have had our 
opportunity, we have for years been on probation, 
but now it is over for us. How gladly would a 
man renounce all that sin has brought him, if 
only he could stand again with his talent in his 
hand, and all life’s opportunities before him. If 
there is one truth more than another on which 
the young may begin to build their life, it is this: 
that each time you decline a duty to which your 
better selfs prompts you, you become less capa- 
ble of doing it ; and on the other hand, that each 
resistance to temptation, each humble and pain- 
ful effort after what is good, is real growth in char- 
acter, growth as real and as permanent as the 
growth in stature which, once attained, can never 
again dwindle to the size of the child. 

Let us then give ear to the parable, and if we 
are conscious that even now we are very poor in 
spiritual things, let us make the most of the 
grace we have lest we become altogether destitute. 
If we are now stammering in prayer, the like- 
lihood is we shall soon be dumb, unable to pray. 
If we are more frequently questioning the reality 
of God’s interference in human affairs, and if we 
more freely admit doubts regarding cardinal 
truths, the likelihood is we shall soon disbelieve, 
and have the very faculty of faith paralyzed soas 


THE TALENTS. 237 


to be unable to perceive evidence the most 
weighty and conclusive. Ifwe are letting go one 
by one our Christian connections, and involving 
ourselves more and more with worldly matters, 
the probability is that shortly we shall be hard- 
ened and eager worldlings. We have seen the 
process going on in many ; why isit not to go on in 
ourselves? If good works and charitable employ- 
ments are more a burden to us than they were, 
let us beware lest we wither and become fit only 
for the axe and the fire. As the cramped and 
numbed arm warms and wakens the sleeper, so 
let this creeping hardness that comes over our 
spirits awaken us, while yet there is time to 
chafe the dead limb to life. If yet we can sum- 
mon into active life one self-denying resolution, 
if yet we can feel at all the constraining power of 
Christ’s love, and can obey His voice in any one 
particular, if yet we can prevail upon ourselves to 
give up worldly and carnal ideas of life, and en- 
tertain humble and chastened desires; then let 
us most anxiously cherish such feelings, let us fan 
every good disposition into flame lest it die, let 
us at once circulate and invest our little remain- 
ing capital in the good works we are daily called 
to, that the very faculty of doing anything for 
God and our fellow-men may not forever perish 
out of us. 

' In closing, it may be well to give special prom- 
inence to a truth which has throughout been im- 


238 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


plied that increased grace is its own reward; or, 
at any rate, an essential part of it. The servant 
who had multiplied his talents is rewarded by 
the possession and use of these multiplied talents. 
He does not now get the burden of business lifted 
off his shoulders, and a life of ease appointed to 
him. This would be to reward the successful 
officer by depriving him of his command, as if 
an ample pension would compensate to a martial 
spirit for the want of active service and fresh op- 
portunities of using richer experience and ampler 
powers. The talents gained are left in the hands 


that gained them, and wider opportunities for 


their use are afforded. This is the reward of the 
faithful servant of Christ; the grace he has dili- 
gently used is increased, and his opportunities 
continually multiply.) He is always entering upon 
his reward; and entrance into heaven only marks 
the point at which his Lord expresses His ap- 
proval, and raises him from a position in which 
his fidelity is tested to a position of rule, that is, 
of acknowledged trustworthiness and self-control, 
the position of one who has acquired an interest 
in the work, and who so manifestly lives for it 
that it is impossible any interest of his own should 
divert him from this. He has no other interest. 
His joy is his Lord’s joy, joy in successfully ad- 
vancing the best interests of men, joy in the sight 
of others made righteously happy. 


— 


This, then, is the reward Christ offers to us, a 


? 


THE TALENTS. | 239 


reward consisting mainly in increased ability to 
serve Him and forward what is good. There can 
be-no-reward more certain, for it begins here and 
now. Your increasing grace is your heaven begun. 
This is the earnest of the Spirit, the dawning of 
eternal day. No one need tell you that there is 
no heaven: the kingdom of heaven is within you. 
And this reward is also the best you can imagine. 
All other rewards would be external to yourself 
and separable from yourself, but this reward is 
within you, in your own growth in character. 
Not your condition alone, but you yourself are 
fo be good. What can be better than this? 
What is the reward the sick man receives for his 
attention to every prescription of his physician 
and his avoidance of everything that would throw 
him back? His reward is that he becomes healthy. 
What reward has the boy for obedience and dili- 
genceand purity? His reward is that he becomes 
a vigorous and capable man, fit forthe ampler en- 
joyments which the nobler activities of life bring. 
So says our Lord, “I am come that ye might 
have life, and that ye might have it more abun- 
_dantly.” If it be asked, what is the great induce- 
ment ? what is that which makes life worth liv- 
ing? what is that which we can set before us as 
our sufficient reward and aim? the answer can 
only be: the inducement is that we have the 
sure hope of becoming satisfactory persons, of 
growing up to the stature and energies of per- 


"eat wines? 


240 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


fect men, of becoming perfect as our Father is 
perfect, who needs no reward but delights ever- 
more in being and doing good; who loves and is 
therein blessed. 


—x——— 


PARABLE OF THE TWO DEBTORS. 
LUKE vii. 36-50. 


THE reader of the Gospels cannot fail to remark 
that the narratives of physical cures are greatly 
in excess of the narratives of spiritual restora- 
tions. Even in cases where spiritual good was 
received, this comes in sometimes as a mere 
appendage to the physical healing. Neither 
can it be thought that the faith required for the 
cure of the bodily disease itself guarantees the 
permanent health of the spirit; for there is 
convincing evidence that not every one who was 
physically restored was also emancipated from 
spiritual disorder. In fact, the reader longs for 
fuller information regarding our Lord’s method 
of dealing with those whose soundness of body 
enabled them to dispense with appeal to His 
miraculous power, but who were yet broken in 
fortune, defeated in life, enthralled by evil habit. 
This little story presents us with such a case; 
and it gives us a glimpse of the background of 
the life of Christ. It was only by accident this 
woman’s case came to the front. There may 


have been many who, like her, received light-and 
16 241 


242 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


healing of soul from a few minutes’ quiet talk 
with Christ, and who returned to their occupa- 
tions unnoticed but renewed. Before she came 
to Simon’s house, this woman had heard Jesus, 
and had found in Him salvation; but nothing 
is told us of that part of her history. 

In asking Jesus to dine with him, the Pharisee 
probably acted, as most men on all occasions 
act, from mixed motives. Others were invited, 
and gladly, no doubt, availed themselves of the 
opportunity of meeting Jesus and for themselves 
determining whether His claim to be a prophet 
was or was not valid. That the Pharisee felt 
¥ himself in the position of a superior person who 
might sit in judgment on this man from Naza- 
reth, is apparent from the circumstance that 
though he asked Him to his house, he gave Him 
a barely civil reception, pointing Him to His 
place without even the formal courtesies which, 
though small in themselves, greatly facilitate 
freedom and friendliness of intercourse. A 
Pharisee, above all men, might have been ex- 
pected to be punctilious in these matters. But 
very often those whose manners are formed 
upon irreproachable models fail grievously in 
the genial consideration of others which springs 
from sweetness of nature. 

The coldness of the reception given to Jesus 
by the self-satisfied Pharisee was unexpectedly 
set in a very strong light by the strikingly oppo- 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 243 


site conduct of the woman who came into the 
room where the company was dining. The 
common Eastern fashion is to sit cross-legged 
on the floor at meals. But the Jews of our 
Lord’s time had adopted the more luxurious 
Greek style of reclining on couches round a 
raised table. Jesus was thus reclining on His 
left side, with His head towards the table and 
His feet extended on the couch towards the wall 
of the room. The intrusion of an uninvited 
guest during meals would of itself excite no 
remark. In fact, provision was often made for 
such intruders by setting cushions round the 
wall of the room for the accommodation of persons 
who might wish to talk with the guests either 
on business or other matters. But that a woman 
of notoriously bad character, and who could not 
fail to be known in the little town to all but 
strangers, should thus enter the dining-room of 
a Pharisee, was probably an unheard-of presump- 
tion. But her whole nature was for the time 
absorbed in devotion to Jesus, and she could not 
wait for a quieter time or more convenient place, 
but passed unheeding through the abuse and 
repulses of the servants of the house. For her 
there was but one presence there. She saw no 
one else; she thought of no one else. Her im- 
pulsive temperament, which had possibly led 
her astray at first, now stands her in good stead, 
and rebukes our cold and tardy expressions of 


244 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


gratitude, our cautious and timorous professions 
of love to Christ. 

She enters the room with the intention of 
anointing the feet of Jesus. But ere she can 
offer Him this adoration, the fulness of her 
heart, stirred by His presence, overflows, and in a 
tumult of penitence, joy, and love she sinks at 
His feet and bursts into tears. In her confusion, 
seeking for something to wipe the feet her tears 
have wet, she uses the hair that is hanging dis- 
heveled about her, and her face being thus drawn 
down and hidden, she covers His feet with kisses. 
Then remembering her errand, she pours the 
ointment over them. 

_. That our Lord did not interrupt her is more 
/~ remarkable than that none of the onlookers did. 
To any ordinary teacher or benefactor there 
would have been extreme awkwardness in receiv- 
ing so extravagant a demonstration of affection 
and in such circumstances. She kissed His feet. 
Homage can find no lowlier tribute to pay. 
Adoration can no farther go. And we cannot 
but rejoice that for the credit of our common 
humanity such a tribute was paid to our Lord. 
There were at least some on earth who recognized 
that He deserved all they could give. This 
woman’s worship is an exhilarating spectacle. 
She creates an atmosphere it does one good to 
. breathe, an atmosphere of high and true senti- 
ment, in which things are rightly estimated, 


OE a 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 245 


and in which conventionality disappears. Would 
only that her kissing of the feet of incarnate 
goodness and love were the representative expres- 
sion of the feeling of all men towards Christ! 


But to the Pharisee the admission of this woman , 


to such liberties was proof that Jesus was no proph-,. rt 


et. He himself would have allowed no such 
unseemly familiarities at the hands of a degraded 
person ; and indeed he might be very easy on that 
score, for it is not the sanctimoniousness of the 
Pharisee that elicits such tributes of devotion. 
Judging Jesus by himself and his class, he did not 
doubt that He too would have spurned this 
woman’s attentions had He known her character. 
It was obvious to the Pharisee that Jesus could 
not know her character, and he therefore concluded 


He had none of the spiritual insight supposed to _ 


characterize the prophet. Jesus penetrates his 
thought, and makes him sensible that whether or 


not He had understood the woman’s state, He at 


e 


any rate accurately gauged him. In a conversa-_ 


tional, easy way He shows, by the Parable of the 


Two Debtors, that love is proportioned to in- 


debtedness ; and then, applying the Parable, He 
defends fhe woman’s conduct, and leaves Simon 
to draw edifying conclusions from his own. The 
Parable is so put that it is obvious to the en- 
tire company that great love means great forgive- 
ness, while meager love means small or doubtful 
forgiveness. Our Lord then contrasts Simon’s 


246 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


conduct with the woman’s; his supercilious viola- 
tion of the commonest courtesies with her gratui- 
tous attentions; his haughty suspicion with her 
undoubting and devoted reverence ; his self-serving 


and contemptuous hospitality, his languid and - 


cool civility, which was unequal to the task of 
filling even the common forms of politeness, with 
the woman’s uncontrollable love that broke 
through all rules and proprieties of life, and forced 
new channels for its own vast volume. The facts 
are obvious to the whole company; the woman’s 
love is unmistakable, Simon’s coldness is equally 
apparent. 

What deduction, then, is to be drawn from these 
facts regarding the spiritual condition of-either 
party ? Simon himself has announced the rule for 
making such a deduction. Great love, he has just 
said, is the result of great forgiveness. The larger 
debtor loved his creditor because he forgave him 
much. This woman, then, has been greatly 
forgiven; her love is the evidence, the proof of 
it, according to Simon’s own showing. Love, 
you have told us, varies with indebtedness; this 
woman’s great love means that she is greatly in- 
debted, has been greatly forgiven. The vehe- 
mence, or as no doubt you would say, the in- 
decency of this woman’s affection, is proof that 
her many sins are forgiven; that is to say, that 
she is pure. But—our Lord adds witha significant 
warning—to whom little is forgiven, the same 


a 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 247 


loveth little; a hint which might raise in the 
mind of Simon the question, Am I forgiven at 
all? Iflove be the index by which we can read 
the amount of forgiveness, and if I have barely 
love enough to show decent respect, what am I 
to conclude regarding my own debt ? 

Our Lord’s immediate object in this Parable 
was to defend the woman and justify His own al- 
lowance of her presence and expressions of affec- 
tion. This defense and justification are accom- 
plished when it is shown that the very familiarities 
which the Pharisee thought Jesus should have 
rebuked are the proof that the woman is forgiven, 
cleansed, and pure. Simon had inwardly con-\ 
demned both the woman and Jesus; the woman \ 
for being a sinner, Jesus for admitting her famil- / 
iarities. By the Parable, Jesus gives him to 
understand that her love is its own justification. 
In this reasoning there is involved—first, that love 
to Christ is love to God, and is therefore the 
measure of purity; and secondly, that love to 
Christ is the result of forgiveness. 

I. First, Christ points to the woman’s demon- 
strations of Jove to Him as proof that her sins are 
forgiven. He is the creditor who has forgiven 
much, and is therefore loved much. In other 
words, He puts Himself, and allows the woman to 
put Him, in the place of God; accepting her love 
for Himself as if it were love to God, and there- 
fore proof that she isforgiven and pure. Hedoes 


248 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


not appeal to the fact that her heart was filled 
with love, irrespective of the object of the love; 
He does not argue that because she was now pos- 
sessed by a pure and unselfish affection, she was 
in a radically sound state of spirit. His argument 
is, that she has been forgiven a debt, and therefore 
loves her creditor. It is Christ Himself she loves, 
and He therefore is the creditor who has forgiven 
her; but her debt was sin, transgression against 
God, and it is therefore God who is her true cred- 
itor. Christ thus identifies Himself with God, and 
in the simplest manner accepts love to Himself as 
if it were love to God, and as decisive evidence 
regarding the woman’s relation to the Highest. 
On another occasion the Pharisees observed 
what was implied in Christ’s forgiving sin, and took 
exception to His doing so on the valid ground 
that none can forgive sins but God only. And it 
may be supposed that on reflection this woman saw 
what was implied in her connection with Christ. 
It may be that as yet she had no definite ideas re- 
garding the relation in which Christ stood to God. 
' We do not know how He had got round her heart 
and quickened within her a craving for purity, and 
encouraged her to strive after it. But plainly He 
had enabled her to believe herself forgiven, and 
had filled her heart with new desires, and to her 
He was the embodiment of the Divine. All she 
sought was in Him. And Christ does not warn 
her, as if this passionate devotion to Him might 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 249 


arrest a love which should go beyond His person. 
He allows her to worship Him, to rivet her af- 
fections and her hopes upon Him ; Heencourages 
her to think of Him as the forgiver of her sin, as 
the one to whom it was right to give undivided 
and unstinted love, as her Lord and her God. 

Christ is, in human personality, “ the power not 
ourselves that makes for righteousness.” He is 
God manifest in the flesh. In Him we have all 
that lifts us to what is best and highest in human 
nature. In Him we find God; all that is sufficient 
to give us confidence, guidance, peace; to fill our 
affections and quicken them, to educate conscience 
and cleanse it, to lift us out of ourselves and give 
us eternal satisfaction. And Christ links us to 
Himself by love, and through our love imparts all 
the blessing He gives. To create an enthusiasm 
for Himself, a true attachment to His own person, 
is His chief object. This woman may have had 
many foolish ideas about God and man, she may 
have retained much that was faulty, but in that 
passion of devotion to Himself our Lord saw the 
beginning of all good in her. Affection for Him 
deadens every evil passion ; it maintains the soul 
in an atmosphere of purity; it assimilates the 
whole nature to the Divine, and fills the heart 
with love to men. Love to Christ is, therefore, 
the measure and the pledge of purity. 

2. Secondly, love to Christ is the result of for- 
giveness, and varies with the amount of debt for- 


” 
250 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


given. But this statement requires certain modi- 
fications. We must not force out of the parable 
any numerically exact ratio between pardon and 
love. Jesus does not mean that the one debtor 
of the Parable was precisely ten times as grateful 
as the other, although his canceled debt was ten 
times as great. Manifestly tl the character of th of the 


of looking at the debt. If they mer men ofa 
precisely similar sensitiveness of conscience and 
quickness of feeling, then their gratitude would 
be in proportion to their debt. But where do we 
find two such men? Is it not notorious that 
while one man is broken-hearted under the shame 
of bankruptcy, another, less nicely educated to 
mercantile honor, jauntily sets about repairing his 
shattered fortunes, and gaily trims his sails to 
catch the changing wind? And between these 
extremes are there not all possible gradations of 
feeling and of conduct? So is it with our debt 
to God. He who has inherited a sensitive con- 
science, and has been trained to shrink from the 
smallest stain, will on that very account be deeply 
humbled even by sins which others make light of, 
and will highly value the mercy that forgives them. 
A coarser nature, habituated to vice, and satu- 
rated with depraved ideas, may accept forgiveness 
with surprisingly little sense of the goodness of 
God. It is not, in short, the amount of sin, but 
the sense of it, which is the measure of ‘gratitude 





THE TWO DEBTORS. 251 


to Him who forgives it. To suppose that by sin- 
ning deeply you secure that one day you will love 


much, is a fallacy. You may have more sin to be \ 


conscious of; but your consciousness of it, instead 
of being greater, will be less. You will seek in 
vain for the old shame, for the early remon- 
strances of conscience, for the same humiliation 
on account of many sins that you once had on ac- 
count of few. Your many sins will stand as facts 
in your history ; but your heart, long used to their 
company, will refuse to loathe them as once it did. 


To be very wicked is no safe receipt for becoming | 


very good. 
But the fact to which our Lord points in the 


parable is the commonly recognized one, that ab-\ 


stinence from crime, and from vices which society 
condemns, and which stain the outward life, fre- 
quently produces a self-satisfied and superficial 
character. The Pharisee is essentially shallow. 
He accustoms himself to judge by what appears ; 
and when he is conscious that he satisfies the re- 
quirements of men like himself, who see no deeper 
than the conduct, he thinks little of his essential 
character, and spends no pains on ascertaining in 
what his virtue isrooted. The obvious difference 
between himself and the flagrant transgressor of 
the law betrays him into self-complacency, pride, 
and ignorance of the spiritual life and of God. 
Such a person remains unhumbled, and has no 
thirst for forgiveness, not being sensible of defile- 


fj 


252 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ment. He criticises Christ, observes and con- 
siders but does not fully understand Him. He 
investigates His relation to other men; but no 
instinct of his own prompts him to cast himself 
upon His friendship as the very Person he needs. 

In contrast to this cold and self-satisfied char- 
acter, our Lord sets the humbled penitent, the 
person who is broken-hearted on account of the 
defilement and accumulating misery and hopeless- 
ness of his sin. His transgression may have been 
of a kind that makes a dark blot on the life. 
Originally of a warm and passionate nature, he 
may have burst the ordinary trammels which 
society lays upon men, and may have brought 
into his life a great deal of wretchedness. Hemay 
be so entangled that deliverance seems hopeless ; 
character and strength of will alike gone, he may 
go from day to day not knowing where to look 
for any help, and sometimes disposed to abandon 
all thought of restoration, and give himself frankly 
and finally to ruin. Such a person, when he is 
lifted out of his solitary despair by the loving 
recognition of Christ, when he feels the forgiving 
hand laid upon him and sees the gate of a new 
life standing open at his very feet, when he be- 
comes conscious that through all his vileness and 
selfishness a Divine compassion has followed him, 
is wholly overcome with mingled shame and joy, 
and hails the Saviour as One who seems to have 
been provided precisely for his necessities. This 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 253 


is the advantage that the conscious sinner has over 
the self-righteous Pharisee. The sins of the one 
being branded by public sentiment, and bringing 
the sinner into collision with physical and social 
laws, are recognized by the sinner himself as deadly 
and humiliating evils. He cannot blind himself 
to the fact that forgiveness and cleansing, inward 
help and purity, are needed by himself. Sin, if it 
has not deepened his nature, has, at all events, 
convinced him of its own reality, and of the ter- 
rible influence it can exert ina human life. The 
Person who sets him free from this pervasive, 
intractable, and overmastering evil becomes all in 
all to him. 

But how was Simon, and how are we, to profit 
by the knowledge that love to Christ isthe result 
of forgiveness? We are conscious that for the 
settlement and perfecting of the spirit there is 
nothing like love to Christ. We know that the 
existence in us of this affection would secure that 
our relations to everything else should be right. 
We have a sense of degradation so long as we are 
attracted by other persons and things, and yet 
feel only a slight attraction and an insecure attach- 
ment to Christ. We would fain love Him with 
the whole strength of our nature. But how are 
we to achieve this highest state of feeling? It is 
useless to demand love, as if such a demand could 
be directly enforced. This is the old dead law 
over again: ‘Thou shalt love.” This, we find, 


254 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


we cannot fulfil. We cannot love just because 
we are commanded to love; no, nor because it 
would be to our advantage to love, nor even 
because we wish to do so. Love must be spon- 
taneous: it is created in presence of what fits our 
nature, so that often we cannot tell why we love 
such and such a person, not understanding our 
own nature sufficiently to see the suitableness. 
Love to Christ is the spontaneous product of our 
sense of His suitableness to our nature and con- 
dition, and of our indebtedness to him. <A sense 
of indebtedness does in some cases produce hatred 
rather than love. But we cannot seek or accept 
forgiveness until we are humbled and see some- 
thing of the transcendent attractiveness of the 
Lord. The soil is thus prepared for the springing 
of love in response to the sunshine of His favor. 
Besides forgiveness is not a solitary gift. It is 
the beginning of a new life, a center from which 
life and light radiate, a germ which exists not so 
much for itself as for what it produces. It brings 
assurance of a friendship that is of infinite value; 
it imparts a reliance upon God, as our God, teach- 
ing us to count upon Him, exhibiting to us His 
hitherto unthought-of goodness. It pervades the 
soul with new and exhilarating sensations, and fills 
it with new desires and purposes. Therefore the 
Gospel does not directly say “ Love,” but “‘ Be- 
lieve.” Trust in Christ as willing to forgive. 
Bring to Him your empty, ruined, ungodly, un. 


THE TWO DEBTORS. 255 


loving spirit, and have it healed, filled, renewed. 
Act upon what you at present know, that He makes 
provision in His own person and work for sinful 
men. Humbly appealto Him with such penitence 
and with such earnestness as you have ; andas you 
open your spirit more and more to His influence, 
and find increasingly how complete you are in 
Him, your love will grow. It may not beofthe 
passionate type elicited in this woman by the 
visible presence of the Lord, but it will be sound 
enough to urge you to serve and to please Him. 
The character of the love we bear Him must be in 
some respects different from that which those felt 
who saw His loving expression of face, and heard 
their forgiveness pronounced by His own lips; but 
it cannot be impossible or unlikely that we should 
learn truly and deeply to love Him who alone 
brings into our life the fruitful and happy expecta- 
tion of endless purity and love, who alone gives us 
assurance that this life is anything better than a 
shortand uneasy dream. Can we failto love Him 
whose love for us is, after all, almost the only fixed 
and sure thing we can count upon? Can we fail 
to love Himto whom we must be indebted for as 
great a forgiveness as was this woman? 


She sat and wept beside His feet ; the weight 
Of sin oppressed her heart ; for all the blame, 
And the poor malice of the worldly shame, 

To her was past, extinct, and out of date ; 

Only the st remained,—the leprous state ; 


256 


THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


She would be melted by the heat of love, 
By fires far fiercer than are blown to prove 
And purge the silver ore adulterate. 
She sat and wept, and with her untressed hair 
Still wiped the feet she was so blest to touch ; 
And He wiped off the soiling of despair 
From her sweet soul, because she loved so much. 
I am a sinner, full of doubts and fears ; 
Make me a humble thing of love and tears. 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 
LUKE X. 25-37. 


THE lawyer who unwittingly gave occasion to 
our Lord to utterthe Parable of the Good Samar- 
itan, was not one of those who sought to betray 
Him into some indiscreet or unorthodox expres- 
sion with which they might accuse Him before the 
authorities. He was rather of the less offensive 
type of person very largely represented in our 
own day, who takes an interest in religious sub- 
jects and religious teachers, who goes to hear all 
the varieties of preaching, and is ready with an 
opinion on every novel theory, and who for the 
most part measures all he hears by a standard as 
obsolete and inapplicable as it would be to meas- 
ure the sufficiency of a town’s defenses by their 
ability to resist sling-stones or battering rams. 
This lawyer tested our Lord by putting to Him 
a question on which a great many others hinged, 
and which gave promise of a lively discussion in 
which a number of our Lord’s opinions would be 
expressed and a full view of His teaching laid 
open. He wished to arrive at that kind of knowl- 
edge of our Lord’s religious position and where 

17 257 


258 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


abouts which in our own day is sometines sought 
to be reached by putting the question, Do you be- 
lieve in miracles ? or, Do you believe that Jesusis 
truly and properly God? The question, however, 
proved an unfortunate one for the scribe’s purpose, 
though one of the luckiest ever put, in so far as it 
called out one of those Parables which the child 
eagerly listens to and which never throughout his 
whole life cease to have some influence upon him. 

What answer the lawyer expected it is impossi- 
ble to say. Certainly he did not expect to be re- 
ferred directly and solely to the moral law, but 
probably thought he should hear of fasts and 
prayer and sacrifices. And in responding as he 
did and quoting a perfect summary of the law, 
he no doubt anticipated that Jesus would speak 
of purely religious duties in which the scribe was 
probably exemplary, or would at all events take 
off the edge of the bare commandment by muf- 
fling it round with a number of observances, ex- 
planations, and so forth. But in place of this he 
is staggered by having the naked law thrust home 
upon himself as the sole and sufficient reply to 
his own question: That is God’s law; He asks 
no more; you already know all His requirement ; 
do it, and you live. 

There is, of course, not the smallest shade of 
quibble in this answer of our Lord’s. It is the 
simple eternal truth. All we have to do to in- 
herit eternal life is to love. God is love, and in 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 259 


creating us He made us such that all we have to 
dois to love. Let us only do this, heartily love 
God and our neighbor, and we fulfil the whole law. 
God has given us this feeling to be both the 
spring and regulator of all else, so that if it be in 
life and healthy exercise all else goes well with us. 
To ask why we may not hate or neglect, is to ask 
why we are as we are, why God has made us 
thus? For us eternal life is eternal love. Christ 
did not come to abolish this law, but to fulfil it; 
to make it possible to us to keep this eternal law 
of our being. What we in this generation have 
to do and to be in order to be eternally alive, is, 
of course, precisely the same as what men of any 
generation have had to doand to be; the dif- 
ference is, that we have better means of fulfilling 
the law. 

The lawyer, however, cannot allow his question 
to be so easily disposed of. He seeks to pursue 
the subject, and accordingly puts the further ques- 
tion, “ Who is my neighbor?” The simplicity 
of the answer of Jesus to his first question must 
have excited in the minds of the bystanders some 
suspicion of the scribe’s sincerity. They must 
have felt that any one professing to know the 
law might have answered such a question for 
' himself. The scribe therefore ‘“ desiring to justify 
himself,’ to show that he had a real interest in 
the subject, and that it was not so easily disposed 
of as Christ’s answer implied, asks for a definition 


260 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


of the term “neighbor.” To one trained as he 
was, it was a natural inquiry, and yet it betrays 
the shallowness of his thoughts on the subject. 
No one whose heart was filled with love could have 
asked such a question. Love never seeks limits, 
but always outlets wider and freer. In His reply, 
therefore, our Lord does not direct attention to 
the objects of love, but to those who exercise it. 
He does not directly answer the question, “ Who 
is my _neighbor?”—a question that bore in it _ 
the hope that these neighbors might.prove.to be _ 
few and such as might be easily loved—friends, 
relatives, connections; but He shows, by an in- 
stance of the actual working of love, that it makes 
neighbors. It is_not_the defining of neighbors 
perience of love that defines for us who are our 
neighbors. He makes the lawyer at once see who 
his neighbor is, by showing him whatloveis. He. 
lets him see that his question cannot be asked by 
aloving heart. Love is here, as elsewhere, a much 
prompter and truer teacher than theological def- 
inition. 

It is this, then, that our Lord teaches by means 
of the Parable—that love, or a merciful spirit, 
finds a neighbor in every one that is in need and 
can be helped; that no tie of kindred or obligation 
imposed by office is so keen-sighted_in detecting 
a neighbor as love is. This He illustrates “with 


a  R 


the same wonderful readiness and finished per- 





THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 261 


fection and fertility of thought as are displayed 
in all the Parables. 

The instance of misery or misfortune which our 
Lord chose was one constantly occurring. It was 
as common for a man to fall among thieves on the 
Jericho road and be left half dead as it is now for 
miners to be killed by an explosion of fire-damp 
or for men to be maimed for life by a machinery 
accident. So n notorious Ahad that road become for. 
bloody wa ‘It roa needs tobe observed about 
this poor man, that he lay in the most urgent need 
of a friend, of one who would give him help, of one 
who would take a little trouble and spend a little 
time over him. It remained to be seen whether 
such ¢ a person would.turn-up.- 

The first to come to the spot was a priest, that 
is, the man of all others bound to do him a 
friendly turn. The priest was not only a Jew, he 
was the representative of the Jews, the Jew by pre- 
eminence ; as especially Jewish asthe British sailor 
is especially British, and to be counted on wher- 
ever a fellow-countryman is in trouble. He was 
by his birth and by his office the brother of all his 
race, not suffered to recognize one tribe more than 
another, not suffered to allow even his own family 
ties to draw him from close attachment to all the 
people. The medical officer of a parish would 
surely not pass a man lying on the road with his 
head cut open, or why does he hold his appoint. 


” 


262 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ment? A soldier who has fallen wounded ina 
retired part of the field of battle will hail it as an 
unusually fortunate circumstance if the first man 
that comes up is the surgeon of his own regiment. 
So, if this wounded Jew had strength enough to 
see the priest as he came in sight, he must have 
considered it a remarkably happy coincidence 
which brought just the person who might most 
naturally be expected to show him kindness—one 
who lived for the people’s good, and one who had 
just been engaged at Jerusalem in services well fit- 
ted to bring him into sympathy with the various 
distressesofmen. If any man might be included in 
the term “ neighbor,” surely the priest might. 
But the priest thought otherwise. Like many 
| another man, he was content to do what he was 
| obliged to do, and what his ritual prescribed; but 
“ad nane of the Spit of His office Amdsore Rad 
fioppened to bin as 30 Napanee who so use 
their official position—it had hardened on him as 
a shell, and separated him from his fellows. He 
was not more a man because a priest, but less a 
man. It was not the fulness of his humanity that 
made him a fit priest; but his priestliness actually 
ighted his humanity all round. 
The other order of men who might chiefly have 
been expected, from the nature of their order and 
office, to be forward to assist and put themselves 
as public property at the disposal of all, was the 
Levitical. The insufficiency of a merely official 






THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 263 


tie is therefore further illustrated by our Lord’s 
introduction of a Levite on the scene. He also 
sees, but turns his head away and almost persuades 
himself he does not know his help is needed. It 
is as if the English consul in some Italian port, in 
passing along the street, saw an Englishman being 
assaulted and in danger of his life, but instead of 
interfering turned into a side street, trying to per- 
suade himself that the man was not an English- 
man, or that the quarrel was not serious, though 
he saw blood; or that the robbers were Govern- 
ment officials securing a culprit. 

It is unfortunately too easy for us all to imagine, 
with the aid of our self-knowledge, what excuses 
these men would make for themselves. Possibly 
the priest knew the Levite was behind him, and 
thought the work fitter for him ; if so, it is one 
instance more of the folly of leaving to others 
work which is fairly our own. Possibly both men 
were tired with their service in Jerusalem, and 
eager to get home. Possibly both were a little 
afraid of delaying in a spot in which there was 
such speaking evidence of its insecurity. Proba- 
bly neither of them cared to get mixed up with a 
business which might involve them in legal pro- 
ceedings, necessitating them to appear as witnesses, 
or which might even bring suspicion on themselves. 
So they passed by on the other side—they tried 
not to see it. From our translation you might 
suppose the Levite made a more minute examina- 


264 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


tion of the man than the priest—“ came and looked 
on him,” it says—but the words are the same in 
both cases. There is no reason to suppose the 
Levite was either so much harder-hearted that he 
went out of curiosity close up to the man to see 
how he was hurt, nor that he was so much softer- 
hearted as to intend at first to help him, but found, 
or persuaded himself he found, his wounds too 
deep for skill of his. The significant fact in both 
cases is, that they saw the man, but passed by on 
the other side, as if trying to persuade themselves 
there was no man there and no reason why they 
should pause. 

This conduct, I say, we can too well under- 
stand. Which of us has not been guilty of pass- 
ing by on the other side, of leaving misery un- 
relieved because it was not clamorous? This 
unfortunate, lying half dead by the roadside, 
could make no importunate supplications for 
relief, could not sit up and prove to the priest 
that it was his duty to help him, could not even 
ask help, so as to lay on the priest the responsi- 
bility of positive refusal; and so he got past 
with less discomfort, but not with less guilt. 
The need is often greatest where least is asked. 
And how many forms of misery are there lying 
within our knowledge as we journey along the 
blood-stained road of life, but which we pass by 
because they do not bar our progress till we give 
our help, or because it is possible for us to put 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN, 265 


them out of our mind and live as though these 
things were not. It is true we could not live, 
or certainly could only live in depression and 
wretchedness, if we kept constantly before our 
minds all known suffering,—if we had a vivid 
image of the pain and sorrow at this present 
moment afflicting thousands of gentle and inno- 
cent persons,—if we set before the mind’s eye the 
the hopeless, wearing anguish that is hidden in 
every hospital in this and other lands, the blank 
despair that numbs the spirit of whole tribes 
swept into slavery under the cruelest oppression, 
the various miseries and difficulties which desolate 
life and cause many and many a victim to curse 
the day of his birth. To go about our ordinary 
duties with all this present to our mind would be 
as impossible as to live in peace, or to live at all, 
if our senses were acute enough to make audible 
to us all the noise within a radius of two or three 
miles, or to make visible to us all that exists un- 
seen. But the passing by on the other side which 
leaves guilt upon the conscience is the putting 
aside of distress that comes naturally before us, 
and the refusing to assist where circumstances 
give us the opportunity of assisting. A lost 
child is crying on the street, but it is awkward to 
be seen leading a dirty, crying child home, so we 
refuse to notice that the child is lost; a man is 
lying as if he were ill, but he may only be in- 
toxicated, and it looks foolish to meddle, and 


266 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. \ 


may be troublesome, so we leave him to others, 
though another rote in that - position may, for 
all we know, make the difference Sarreencrntl 
death, You read a paragraph of a paper giving 
a thrilling account of a famine in China, or some 
other great calamity; but when you come to a 
clause intimating that subscriptions will be re- 
ceived at such and such a place, you pass to 
another column, and refuse to allow that to make 
the impression on your mind which you feel it is 
beginning to make. In short, you will, in these 
and many like circumstances, wait till you are 
asked to help; you know you could not in 
decency refuse if you were asked, if the matter 
were fully laid before you and all the circumstances 
detailed, but you will put yourself out of reach 
before this can be done; you will not expose 
yourself to the risk of having your charitable feel- 
ings stirred, or at any rate of having your help 
drawn upon; you will, if possible, wipe the thing 
from your mind, you will carefully avoid follow- 
ing up any clue, or considering steadily any hint 
or suggestion of suffering. 

But, as we have said, it was not just another 
man, or just another /ew, that came and saw this 
man lying in his blood, it was, both in the case 
of the priest and Levite, one who had a special 
tie or obligation to be compassionate. These 
men were supposed to be a kind of embodied 
and living law of God, an incarnate compassion, 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 267 


a reflex-on earth of the mercy of the Most High. 
They of all men should have recognized this Jew 
as their_ brother. Their peculiar guilt is ours 
when we repudiate any special responsibility, and 
make as though there were no tie between us 
and the object needing help. And happy are 
they who can say that at least of this special 
guilt they are free,—who have really filled up 
with active love all the relationships of life by 
which God has brought them into connection 
with others, and who cannot reproach themselves 
with failing to see what any friend, servant, 
relative required, or, having seen it, to do it for 
them,—who know no instance in which they 
failed to bring assistance because it was of a 
troublesome kind, or of a kind that would have 
brought them into connection with disreputable 
people, or would have made them look foolish 
or meddling or romantic. Surely if not in 
your own case, then in the case of others, you 
see that it is not always the relationship that 
gives the love, but the love that makes the re- 
lationship,—that there is often a friend that 
sticketh closer than a brother—an outlaw from 
the faith that is more substantially helpful, wiser 
and readier in advice and prompter in lending a 
hand, than one belonging to the same “ household 
of faith.’ Had you met this Levite after seeing 
his conduct, would you not have been tempted to 
say to him, What are you a Levite for, if not to 


268 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


give such help? If you encountered a police 
official who carefully avoided all dangerous and 
troublesome interference, would you not be apt 
to challenge his right to retain his post? But 
might we not turn our challenge on ourselves, 
and say to ourselves, Why are you a Christian? 
what do you unite yourself to Christ for? Is it 
not that you may be able to do good, to be help- 
ful, to become salt to the earth, and of excep- 
tional value among men? If, then, you shrink 
from all exceptional duty, from all that calls for 
trouble and real sacrifice, from all that puts you 
seriously about, what is the good of your Christian- 
ity? where does it go? 


But while there are men whose lack of human- © 


ity empties their relationships and every office 
they hold of all service to others, save only what 


they are rigidly bound to by the letter of their — 
engagement, and compelled to by the insistence — 
or observance of others, there are also men whose © 
love throws out sympathies on all sides, invents — 
obligations where no claim could be enforced, © 
and breaks through restrictions naturally hindering ~ 


them from interference. So far from seeking ex- 
cuse for not helping, they invent excuses for help- 
ing, or are unconscious that excuses are needed. 
Of this class of men the Good Samaritan is the 
mortal type—the once-drawn picture of the 
master-hand that needs no added touch. In him 


you see that it it is love that makes the differ. — 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 269 


ence; that in the time of need a compassionate 
heart is to more purpose than any tie, engage- 
ment, office, or bond. All the excuses the others 
had might have been his, and many more. He 
was not bound to the man by any tie of country, 
he was not even a mere foreigner, but was of the 
Samaritans, who had no dealings with the Jews. 
What the Christian is to the Mohammedan, the 
Jew was to the Samaritan. Born amonga people 
whose most active energy was spent in demon- 
strations of enmity against the Jews, part of his 
education must have been to annoy and per- 
secute. Neither was this man an official like the 
_ priest, who might have been greeted with a re- 
spectful salutation had the man been in a con- 
dition to have given it, and who would probably 
have resented the omission of such a token of re- 
spect; but he wasan alien who would more likely 
have read the expression cf a mocking hatred on 
the face of the passer-by, or have even been 
greeted with cursing, or “Thou art a Samaritan, 
and hast a devil.” But over all these influences 
love triumphs, and he with whom this wounded 
Jew would at any other time have contemptuously 
refused to deal has now dealings with him of a 
very touching nature. That is to say, it is love 

that makes man neighbor to man. The true 


neighbor is the man who has a compassionate” 


heart anda f friendly spirit. Where this is want- 
ing, s, it avails not that a man lives next door, 


270 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


or belongs to the same congregation, or is a 


member of the same club or union or profession ; 

it ought to be so that_these external. associations 
quicken our friendliness, and so they.often do, and 
where love exists they.find..expressionfor_it-in 
many suitable ways; but these external bonds 
can never _supplytheplace.oflove. No doubt 
the people who saw how careful the Samaritan 
was of his protégé would say, He must be his 


brother,. or his neighbor, or an old friend ; fo for the 


truth_is,. that. genuine compassion and affection 
make aman brother, neighbor, and friend of all. 
It is not, then, by any marks_in_others that you _ 
can test who is your neighbor; it is not by the 
marks of race, neighborbood, religion, common 
pursuits, old friendships, not by anything in eel 
at all you can determine; but only by whatis.in — 
yourself, namely, humanity of disposition, friend- 
liness, compassion, or whatever name you choose 
to give it. Love alone.can.determinewho.is-your — 
neighbor, 

_~ Another point is incidentally brought out by our 
Lord. Love does not ask, What claim has this 
man and that man on me? but, What does 
this or that man need that I can do for him? It | 
must have been, and it still is, an edifying sight to — 
see the completeness of the Samaritan’s attentions — 
—to see him kneeling with the interested, anxious 
eye of a friend by the side of the Jew, gently rais- — 
ing his head, cleansing his wounds, mollifying — 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 271 


them with oil, binding them with stripstorn from 
the first thing that came to hand, restoring in 
him the grateful desire of life, and greeting his 
return to consciousness with the strength-giving 
congratulations of genuine affection. We might 
suppose_he had now.done.enough. How is his 
own business to go forward if he thus delays ? 
But love is not_so soon satisfied. He sits by 
him till he is strong_enough to be set on his 


Pe es ee ee E 


hands when he has. got him to ‘an in. inn. He has 
himself to go on his journey, but he will not on 
that account, nor on any account, disconnect 
himself from the man ; he will disconnect himself 
from him only when he needs no more assistance. 
This is love’s way. To be asking, How far am I 
to go in helping others? shows we have not love. 
To be asking, To what extent must I love? 
Where can I stop? Whom can I exclude? and 
From what sacrifices may I reasonably turn away ? 
is simply to prove that we have not as yet the 
essential thing, a loving spirit; for love asks no 
such questions, but ever seeks for wider and wider 
openings. 

This, then, is our Lord’s answer to the ques- 
tion, How shall I inherit eternal life? The an- 
swer is, Love as this Samaritan did. You will 
not receive eternal life as the reward of doing 
so, in the sense that, having now helped men and 


272 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


sacrificed for them, you shall enterinto an eternity 
in which you may cease doing so, and live in 
some other relation to them. Not so. But by 
loving men thus you hereby enter into that state 
of spirit and that relation to your fellow-men 
which zs eternal life, the only eternal relation pos- 
sible. What more can you be asked to do than 
to love those you have to do with? It is that 
which will alone enable you to fulfil all duty to 
them. You need not ask, What is due to this 
man or that, how much service, how much assist- 
ance, how much substantial help? These are very 
useful questions where there is no love, but they 
are never sufficient, and they are therefore all sum- 
marily dismissed by Paul in his brief rule, “Owe no 
man anything, du¢ to love one another,’—that is 
the one debt always due, never paid off, always re- 
newed, and that covers all others. You aremeantto 
live happily and strongly and sweetly ; the relations 
of society part to part are meant to move as sweetly 
as the finest machinery, and love alonecan accom- 
plish this. It is a mere groping after harmony 
and order and social well-being that we are occu- 
pied with while we try to adjust class to class, na- 
tion to nation, man to man, by outward laws or 
defined positions. 

One of our most popular teachers, Emerson, 
is indeed bold enough to say, in direct contradic- 
tion to this Parable, ‘Do not tell me, as a good 
man did to-day, of my obligation to put all poor 


tent eel 


THE GOOD SAMARITAN. 273 


men in good situations. Are they my poor? I 
tell thee, thou foolish philanthropist, that I grudge 
the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to such men 
as do not belong to me, and to whom I do not 
belong. There is a class of persons to whom, by 
all spiritual affinity, 1am bought and sold; for 
them I will go to prison if need be.” Him we 
may well leave to be answered by that deeper- 
seeing heathen, who said, “ Nature bids me assist 
men ; and whether they be bond or free, gentle- 
folk or freedmen, what matter? Wherever a man 
is, there is room for doing good.” To obey 
Emerson’s law would be to introduce into a world 
already sufficiently broken up into sects, classes, 
and parties, a division more alienating and inex- 
tinguishable than creed distinctions, more bitter 
and personal than race hatred, more irreconcilable 
and truly hardening than class separation. 

We may therefore measure ourselves thus, and 
thus we may see what our religion has done for 
us. Our Lord came to set us right with one 
another; to put us on a footing with those with 
whom we are to spend eternity, such as shall make 
it possible to us to do so. He said, again and 
again, “ This is the command I give unto you, 
that ye love one another.” This is one half of 
our salvation, one half which involves the other, 
and you may measure the help you have re- 
ceived from Christ and ascertain in how far 
you area saved person by the ability you have 


274 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to keep this command. This is the test John 
gives: “We know that we have passed from death 
to life.” How? “ Because we love the brethren.” 
How is it, then, with ourselves? While Christ 
tells us we should not hesitate even to lay down 
our lives for the brethren, that is to say should 
not be behind even natural generosity, which week 
by week prompts men to sacrifice life for others, 
even for persons they could not name,—while 
Christ leaves us this command, and illustrates it 
by His whole life, do we grudge to live uncom- 
fortably for our brethren? This comfort and 
that we raise to the rank of necessities, and 
limit our givings and our sympathies. But love 
sweeps away such necessities, and shows itself the 
highest law of all. If still you say, What are we 
to do for others? is it not enough to give what 
law and decency require us to give? is it not 
enough to forbear doing harm, speaking evil, in- 
flicting injury? your Lord has but the one an- 
swer: Love them first of all, and see what will 
come of that. 


THE RICH FOOL. 


LUKE xii. 13-21. 


THIs is yet another Parable in which our Lord 
illustrates the attitude He expects us to assume 
towards the world and its goods. It was occa- 
sioned by an unusually blunt exhibition of world- 
liness. Our Lord had been assuring His disciples 
that if they were brought into court, the Holy 
Ghost would teach them what to say. There is 
aman in the crowd to whom, at last, the words 
of Jesus begin to seem practical ; courts, lawsuits, 
inheritances, were the staple of his thoughts, and 
the familiar words make him prick his ears. This 
ability to speak in courts is the very thing he has 
been seeking. If Jesus hasit, He will possibly 
be good enough to use it for him, and so he will 
get his law gratis, as well as recover his share in 
the inheritance. This is a delightful prospect, 
too good an opportunity to let slip. And so, — 
utterly blind to the kind of interests our Lord 
had at heart, utterly regardless of the crowd, pos- 
sessed with the one thought that for months and 
years had consumed him, and seeing only that 


Jesus had great wisdom and justice, a remarkable 
275 


276 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. ' 


faculty of putting things in their right light, and 
an authoritative manner, which surely not even 
his brother could resist, he blurts out—‘ Master, 
speak to my brother, that he divide the inherit- 
ance with me.” 

To one whose interests are religious, or polit- 
ical, or literary, or scientific, it is always amus- 
ing to see the unbounded importance which many 
men whose business is in money attach to their 
department of affairs, and the unaffected earnest- 
ness with which they discuss them. There isa 
solemnity in their manner when they speak of 
large sums ; they seem to grow and swell with the 
amounts they name, a mystery and awe in their 
tone as they tell of big transactions, a pompous 
and grand dignity as they give the history of 
some bit of property, which is abundantly in- 
structive. They turn from religious talk to this 
monetary style with the air of one who should 


say, Religion is all very well asa pleasing specu: 
lation or emotional tonic, but this other is the 


reality ; let us now put aside all mere play of the 


_ imagination and turn to the substantial affairs of 


life. They constantly betray the understanding 
on which they live, the understanding that every- 
thing must give way to business, that z¢ is the 
real thread on which life is strung. 

The egotism of worldliness was never exhibited 
in a more barefaced, naked, ‘shameless form. 1. Here 
had this man, through all our Lord’s conversa- 


THE RICH FOOL. 277 


tion, been thinking his own worldly thoughts; 
what he gathers from all our Lord has been say- 
ing is, that He would make a good lawyer; and 
the best thing he can imagine that Christ, with 
His felt authority and goodness, can do for him, 
is to help him to a better income. He is sensible 
of Christ's power; if he was informed that He 
had come down from heaven, he would not be 
disposed to question it. What is it then, as he 
stands in presence of this highest beneficence, 
that he will claim; what is it, now, that he finds 
his opportunity, that he will have? That half- 
acre his brother has kept him out of. So are men 
judged by their wishes and cravings. 

In many small towns you find harmless luna- 
tics, who are glad to find a stranger on their 
streets whom they can lay hold of, and pour out 
their wrongs to, and repeat the old story of their 
claims to this estate or that title or handsome for- 
tune. One would be glad to think this man was 
such an irresponsible creature, who, merely recog- 
nizing in our Lord a strange face, gave utterance 
to his one constant demand, “Speak to my 
brother, that he divide the inheritance.” But 
covetousness and lunacy are always so nearly al- 
lied that this man can scarcely be considered as 
showing any special signs of lunacy. We can all 
detect in ourselves the germs of his character. 
We know how possible it is to retain a grasping 
disposition and avaricious purposes through very 


278 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


solemn converse with things spiritual. We know 
what it is to let some one important affair take 
such possession of our thoughts that, for the time, 
God and all spiritual things are as though they 
were not. Nay, do we not know what it is to cal- 
culate on the influence of Christ moving some one 
to do us a worldly advantage, which otherwise we 
could not hope for? 

What a contrast did these two central figures 
of the crowd present! This man in whom no 
response whatever is found to anything spiritual, 
who can stand and listen to God Incarnate and 
be conscious of no new desires, no new world 
opening to his hope,—this poor shrunken crea- 
ture on the one hand, and on the other Jesus, in 
whose eye no answering sparkle met the glitter 
of gold, who could listen to talk about disputed 
successions and undivided properties without the 
smallest interest, who could not be tempted to 
assume authority in affairs where the arbiter 
would not be forgotten. What our Lord con- 
‘tinued throughout His life to do, He did here— 
_ refused to interfere in civil matters, repelling in- 
| dignantly the idea that He was to be used as 
a petty magistrate. Not that the kingdom He 
had come to establish was to have no influence 
on the world, for it was destined to influence its 
minutest affair, but this was all to come about in 
a regular way; the hearts of men were to be 
Christianized, and they being so, all other things 


THE RICH FOOL. 279 


would feel the influence. Our Lord would not 
spend a word in composing that fraternal differ- 
ence, but He would spend all the force of His 
teaching on extirpating the cause of the differ- 
ence. ‘“ Man, who made me a judge ora divider 
over you?” He said, but also, “Take heed, and 
beware of covetousness.” If our Lord, who saw 
in every case what was right to be done, refused 
to intermeddle, how much more should we limit 
ourselves to what is our own sphere, who neither 
clearly and wholly understand, nor are wise to 
act. A great part of the mischief that is done in 
the world comes of men overstepping the region 
with which they are familiar, and in which they 
are authoritative. It is amazing to hear with 
what boldness and unsuspecting confidence men 
pronounce upon matters with which they have 
had the most meager acquaintance. 


It was the shock produced by this man’s naive 
display of his* absorbing worldliness which made 
our Lord at once turn to the crowd with the 
words, ‘“ Take heed, and beware of covetousness: 
for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance 
of the things he possesseth.” This, then, is 
pointed out as the great snare of covetousness, 
that it tends to make a man identify himself with 
his possessions and rate_himself by them. This 
is what our Lord here lays His finger on, as being 
especially disastrous in this vice; it blinds a man 


280 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to the fact that he remains forever distinct from 
his possessions; that he is one thing, his posses- 
sions another; that he and they cannot be amal- 
gamated, but must remain separate in essence and 
_in destiny. 

That covetousness has this tendency every one 
knows. The man who values himself for what 
_ he has, and not for what he is, the man who 
fancies himself great beeause his possessions are 
great, is one of the most familiar objects of ridi- 
cule. But take heed, for there is a current set- 
ting that way which all of us feel the force of. 
Money-making is one of the most obvious and 
convenient goals which a man can choose for him- 
self in life. Many men, when young, are sadly 
at a loss what to make of life, and are burdened 
with their capabilities. They know they can do 
something, but cannot determine what. They 
have not tested themselves, and cannot say what 
might be the prudent course. They have no 
strong natural bent towards any particular calling. 
Now to realize a competence supplies an aim, easily 
thought of and easily held in view. To make a 
fortune is an appreciable result, that a man may 
spend his effort on and measure his progress by. 
If it be made, there it is to show, it is actual 
visible achievement, a monument of labor spent. 
And in the course towards the goal there is a 
great deal of satisfaction, there is evident prog- 
ress. A man is fallen very low indeed, if he is 


THE RICH FOOL. 281 


not at all concerned to know that he is making 
any advance one way or another. Now, men can 
very soon learn the art of measuring their prog- 
ress, not by themselves, or their own personal 
growth, not by any ripeness of character and real 
internal acquisition, but by mere outward, mate- 
rial gain. They are content with some little glows 
of satisfaction that they are rising in the world, 
that they are able this year to command some 
luxuries that were last year beyond their reach, 
and especially that this actual thing, money, has 
increased in their hands. This is the way we 
practically come to measure ourselves by what we 
have, and to think that our life consists in the 
abundance of the things we possess. 

And what our Lord insists upon here, and seeks 
to impress us with, is the folly and disaster of so 
doing. He shows us that a man and his posses- 
sions are distinct ; that a man’s life is not longer / 
nor happier in proportion to what he has; that, 
the man, the living soul, is one thing, the goods 
another; that he goes one way, they another; 
and that by no ingenuity can a man get himself 
and his property so united that /e shall be beauti- 
ful, strong, lasting as itis. He may fill his shelves 
with the wisest and most elevating books, and yet 
remain illiterate; he may gather round him pre. 
cious works of art, and be a clownanda boor; he 
may buy up a county, and be the smallest souled 
man in it; he may erect a mansion which will last 


282 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


for ten generations, and may not have ten years 
of life or ten minutes of health to enjoy it. A 
man’s possessions obstinately stand off from him- 
self. Naturally we all feel that we are expanding 
and enlarging ourselves in extending our posses- 
sions, that we are more firmly rooting ourselves 
on earth; in each of them we seem to havea mir- 
ror reflecting ourselves, and each of them adds to 
our importance. Our Lord, therefore, presents to 
‘Our view a man who has abundant, superabundant 
possessions, but has no life left. He had laid up 
goods in abundance, and reckoned on life in abun- 
dance, a long, full, lively life. He forgot the dis- 
tinction, but it was made nevertheless. He is 
shown to us separate from his possessions, and 
transferred to asphere where, like old-world coins, 
their value is unknown and they can neither be 
accounted, used, nor enjoyed. 

The rich man of the parable is represented as 
one of the exceptionally favored children of for- 
tune. He had already become wealthy at an age 
at which he might naturally count upon having 
several years of enjoyment. His wealth, too, had 
been acquired, not by hard fatiguing labor, but in 
that line of life in which, more than in any other, 
a man’s time is his own, and he can work or play 
as he feels disposed. And especially it is to be 
remarked that no sin attached to his money-mak- 
ing; he had not made his money by gambling, 
he had not profited by another man’s disaster, no 


THE RICH FOOL. 283 


one was the loser for his winnings, it was the 
honest, unsullied gift of Heaven to him; his fields 
yielded enormously. But as a sudden and great 
alteration of circumstances is the best revealer of 
what a man really is, this sudden wealth disclosed 
a selfishness in this land-holder of which before 
he had perhaps not been suspected. | 
The manner in which his wealth had come to \ 
him sets_ his ingratitude to Ged in a stronger | 
light. Though his wealth had come to him 
through that medium which is most evidently at 
God’s discretion, so evidently that even men 
who are ungodly in other matters make some 
show of acknowledging that years of famine and 
years of plenty depend on God’s will,—though 
the gifts of God had come to him by the shortest 
route, as if from and out of God’s very hand, un- 
hidden by any complicated transactions with 
men,—though his wealth had been built up by 
the elements, whose influence he could neither 
command nor restrain,—yet he seizes and claims 
as his own the fruits of his fields, as if he had been 
the maker of them, as if no one else had spent any- 
thing on them, and as if he had to consult no one 
but himself as to their disposal. What most men 
would have decency if not devotion enough to call | 
a Godsend, he calls a windfall, and gathers up as 
his very own. A great success solemnizes some 
men; they hurry home and fall] on their knees; 
they are ashamed of so much goodness coming 


284 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to men so unworthy, and they hasten to make 
acknowledgment. Serious-minded men who en- 
gage in business not for the mere excitement and 
gain of it, walk in God’s presence, and bear in 
mind that the silver and the gold are His, that 
promotion cometh not from the north or south 
by the wind that happens to be blowing, and are 


__therefore ever ready to say, What shall I render 


to the Lord for all His benefits towardme? Can 
anything be more pitiable than the man who 
stands at his counting-house door and forbids 
God’s entrance while his balance is being struck, 
who does not care that God should know how 
much he made last year, but goes and prays that 
this God would give him success this year? Is it 
not astonishing how religious men who profess to 
live for God, should so carefully keep Him from 
interfering in their money matters, that is, in 
those matters round which their life really re- 
volves? If we cannot go before God and frankly 
say, This is what I have made this year, and I 
could not have made it but for Thee and Thy 
help,—this is because we fear God will claim too 
much, and prompt us to use it as we are not pre- 
pared todo. Must there not be something wrong 
if we are not letting God’s eye and judgment 
fully and freely into every transaction we engage 
in, and every gain we make? 

In the case of this rich man, certainly his blind- 


' ness to the source of his wealth and the bad use 


THE RICH FOOL. 285 


| he made of it did hang together. He missed the 
opportunity of being God’s almoner, of dispens- 
ing God’s bounty tothe needy. He did not rec- 
ognize that it was the Lord who gave, and 
therefore it was not the Lord’s poor who got. 
The goods are zs goods—he can’t get past that; 
he may do what he likes with them, he cannot 
see that there is any other vote or voice in the 
matter. In what sense the fulness of the world 
is God’s he has no mind to consider. His barns 
are bursting, he has more wealth than he knows 
what to do with; but one thing is certain, it must 
all be spent on himself. You would suppose he 
had never seen a hungry child in his life; you 
would suppose he had never met a beggar, or 
seen a blind man or a cripple in his market town. 
“ Where shall I bestow my goods?” This was 
his difficulty, and yet he had the world before 
him, a world filled with want, abundant in misery, 
rich in cases of need. How many hundreds 
there were who could have given him very pointed 
and definite directions! how many who would 
quickly have relieved him from his perplexity! 
how many at that very hour, when he was wonder- 
ing what he could do with his superfluity, were 
tortured by the opposite perplexity, wondering 
where they could get bread for these pale, ap- 
pealing children, where they could find tempo- 
rary aid to help them through a year of disaster ! 
Among all the investments he had heard and 


286 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


thought of, there was one prospectus he had ap- 
parently not seen, that to which God has put 
His name, “ He that giveth to the poor, lendeth 
to the Lord.’’ He did not apprehend that their 
bare and empty homes would be better houses 
of investment than his own locked and useless 
barns. 

It is no more than what thousands of rich men, 
and of men who are not rich, every day do; he 
would not be in the Parable if he were excep- 
tional. He is here because he is typical—typical 
of the men who, in considering how they shall 
invest their gains, look only to their own interests, 
—who, in considering their next step, have chiefly 
in view, what advantage can I win for myself? 
and who do not consider what good they can do. 
Life is constructed almost entirely on selfish 
principles: business is carried on upon the under- 
standing that every man must look out for him- 
self. One of the many benefits of war is, that it 
counteracts this selfishness; men learn to think 
of the common cause, of the public good, of the 
prosperity of the country, of the honor of their 
regiment. But in most departments of life men 
are prone to consider merely or chiefly, How can 
I get the utmost of good for myself? Often 
and often no other thought whatever is at the 
root of an investment, a transaction, an enter- 
prise. The future is sketched in the mind, and 7 
am the center, and all else is arranged so as most 


THE RICH FOOL. 287 


effectually to contribute to my joy. They are 
the few whose first thought it is, Is there any 
one I can benefit? and who so frequently think 
how they can promote the welfare and happi- 
ness of others, that at last this becomes a habit 
with them. 

When we consider the sleek and complacent 
selfishness of the man that could quietly propose 
to spend many years of comfort without a thought 
of others, we are almost glad to hear of his sudden 
disappointment. Doubtless the man might have 
died as suddenly if he had been better prepared. 
Had he invited all the poor of the district, to make 
a distribution to them of his surplus, he might all 
the same have died without seeing his benevo- 
lence enjoyed. But while there are few things 
more delightful to contemplate than the sudden 
painless departure of the man who has walked 
with God, there are few things so shocking as the 
sudden death of the sinner, who dies in passion 
with an oath on his lips, or never wakens fromthe , 
insensibility of drunkenness. And what-this Par- 
able draws attention to is the vanity, the in- 
security of worldly and selfish expectations. The 
man had one view of the future: God another. 
The man was saying, “Thou hast much goods laid 
up for many years:”’ God was saying, “ Not an- 
other night shall you possess a single bushel.” 
What a satire is here upon man! Truly every 
man walketh in a vain show ; he heapeth up riches 


288 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


and knoweth not who shall gather them. He 
builds his house and purposes to live and see good 
days, but a voice falls from heaven, Thou mis- 
reckoning man, the house may be built, but there 
will be no maw to inhabit it. 

In his own thoughts the man was living through 
long years of ease and plenty, but the cold reality 
touched his warm expectations, and they withered 
death-stricken. The wind passeth over him and 
he is gone, and the place he counted his knows 
him no more. He was reckoning that no life 
could be worthy of comparison with his; that his 
shrewd plans had been fully accomplished, his ut- 
most hopes exceeded, he was in the full triumph 
of self-gratulation, counting himself the most 
successful of men, the man to be envied ; but this 
is God’s judgment: “ Thou fool.” But might he 
not set even God’s judgment of his conduct at 
defiance? Was he not surrounded by tokens of 
his success, by proofs of his wisdom? Alas! in 
that very article and particular in which he had 
judged himself most wise, he was exhibited as 
conspicuous in folly. He had spent all his poor 
wisdom in providing for this soul of his an easy, 
merry, plentiful life, and he finds that so far from 
providing an abundant life for himself, he is un- 
able to secure life of any kind, and would gladly 
exchange his position for the life of the meanest 
of his slaves. Stripped, naked, a bare, desolate 
soul, he passes from our sight, lost in the darkness 


THE RICH FOOL. 289 


of eternal remorse, his own voice still dolefully 
echoing the condemning voice of God, his own 
soul turning on itself with the everlasting reproach 
“Thou fool! thou fool!” 

“ This night thy soul shall be required of thee: 
then whose shall these things be, that thou hast 
provided?” The answer comes from many a 
dissipated fortune, from many an auction room, 
in which are exposed the accumulations of a life- 
time. There is one of the places a man proud of 
his possessions may moralize. The most precious 
and frequently handled gems of the departed 
owner are handed over to men who never saw him, 
or who madea jest of his avarice, or to men who 
rivaled him, and are now proud of living a year 
or two longer and getting as their own what they 
had long grudged to him. The books he read are 
now penciled by others; his plate his defaced and 
marked with other names; the very bed he lay on 
he needs no more; the clothes he wore he shall 
never again use; his mirrors, it is well they can- 
not now reflect him. 

“So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, 
and is not rich towards God.” So, that is equally 
senseless, and in an equally precarious position. 
But how many does this judgment hit? Yet not 
all; for some, on finding unexpected means com- 
ing into their hands, would have said within them- 
selves, This is delightful, this will enable me to 
provide for this needy relative, this will at last put 

*9 


290 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


me ina position to make up for loss I unwittingly 
occasioned. This will precisely fit the wants of 
this or that benevolent institution that I know 
makes admirable use of its funds. God identifies 
Himself with all that is needy on earth, and 
spending treasure for the needy is spending 
treasure for God. 

And in so spending we become rich towards 
God, are provided for so far as our outlook God- 
wards is concerned. How is it then with mus ? 
Suppose all earthly possessions were suddenly to 
drop from about you, as they one day will, what 
would you have left? Would you then be rich 
or poor? Would the wants you would then begin 
to feel be amply provided for? Here we are now 
without our possessions, are we rich at this 
moment? Suppose we never got back to our 
homes, suppose we were by some great natural 
catastrophe at this hour separated from all that 
we have provided for this life, should we still be 
rich? Is there something so belonging to you 
that you can say, This is mine for evermore— 
mine through every change, through health and 
sickness, in life and death—mine though I be 
stripped of all that can be separated from my 
person, though I stand a bare spirit without con- 
nection with material things? Will you honestly 
give yourselves an answer to this question? What 
have 1 towards God? What that is certain to 
increase the nearer I goto Him? Am Iso joined 


THE RICH FOOL. 291 


to Him that I can say, “I am persuaded, that 
neither life nor death, nor any other creature, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God, 
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord?” 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 
LUKE Xili. 6-9. 


Tus Parable formed part of the conversation 
which our Lord held with those who reported to 
Him the fate of some Galileans whom Pilate had 
slaughtered in the temple. The Galileans were 
notoriously turbulent, and on more than one oc- 
casion Pilate quelled their disposition to riot 
with the decisive and unrelenting ferocity that 
characterized him. On this occasion he seemsto 
have stepped beyond his jurisdiction, and to have 
sent soldiers into the temple to slay the sacrificers 
among the beasts they were sacrificing—an act 
which would have desecrated a pagan temple, 
and which was peculiarly horrible in a temple 
so sacred and exclusive as that of the Jews. In- 
deed, one is tempted to suppose the atrocity had 
been magnified by rumor, and that what had at 
first been related in strong figures was at last 
taken literally ; that Pilate had slaughtered some 
Galileans who had come to the city to sacrifice, 
but were not yet inside the temple; and that 
some one returning to Galilee, and finding him- 
self an object of interest as a participator in the 


disturbance, and desiring to make a terse and 
292 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 293 


picturesque report of what had happened, said 
with an allowable figure of speech that Pilate had 
mingled their blood with that of their sacrifices. 
This report a hearer taking literally might sup- 
pose to mean that Pilate had sent soldiers into 
the temple and had slain the worshipers among 
the altars and sacrificial animals. 

Whatever the act of Pilate had been, those 
who now spoke of it seemed impressed, not so 
much with any perfidy or profane ferocity on his 
part, as with the exceptional guilt which they 
suppose these Galileans must have incurred to 
justify their consignment to such adoom. They 
argue that God would not have delivered up any 
of His worshipers to so shocking a death, had 
they not been guilty of some exceptional ini- 
quity. And with the pleasure men find in speak- 
ing of the disasters of others while themselves 
secure, and of commenting upon wickedness 
which they believe to exceed their own, these 
persons come with their story to Jesus, hoping to 
hear some edifying discourse on the wickedness 
of the world at large, and some suggestions which 
may warrant them in congratulating themselves 
with still more satisfied complacency. 

They are, however, disappointed. In this 
slaughter of the Galileans, as well as in other calami- 
ties to which public attention had been drawn, 
our Lord sees no evidence of exceptional guilt, 
but rather samples of calamity threatening the 


294 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


whole nation. These disasters were the first mut- 
terings of the storm which was shortly to break 
over the whole community. The Jews were not 
to look at the Galileans, or at those of their own 
number on whom the tower of Siloam fell, as 
separate from themselves by any peculiar wicked- 
ness; they were to consider them as integral 
parts of the nation, andto accept and gather 
warning from the strokes which thus fell upon 
the people at large. These strokes, our Lord 
says, were meant to awaken the whole nation to 
its precarious condition. They were meant to 
make the people at large consider whether they 
did not as a people together deserve a like doom. 
They are, in short, the first efforts of the hus- 
bandman to stimulate the tree to greater activity. 
The branches which have been cut off are cut off 
not for any special fault of theirs, but to quicken 
the whole tree. Ifthe Jewish ear were opened, 
it would hear in these thickening accidents and 
disasters, not any private calamity, but the voice 
of the husbandman wondering how the whole 
tree can be made to produce any proper and valu- 
able fruit. Hence the Parable of the Fig-tree. 

The direct meaning of the Parable is unmis- 
takable. What had happened to these Galileans 
would shortly happen to the whole nation unless 
they so repented as to accomplish God’s purpose 
with them. This Jewish people was like a fig-tree 
enjoying every advantage, but bearing no fruit. 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 295 


As three years make up the full time which it is 
reasonable to spend upon the cultivation of an 
apparently barren tree, so there is a fulness of 
time in the history of a nation during which it 
receives its opportunities. This time had now 
expired with the Jews, and the forty years that 
were yet given them, in answer to the “ Father, 
forgive them,” which our Lord breathed from 
the cross, were the tree’s ultimate year of pro- 
bation which was to decide its fate. To every 
nation God has given a special task, and special 
gifts and opportunities to accomplish it. As the 
body requires many members, and all the mem- 
bers have not the same office,—as the orchard has 
many kinds of trees, and one kind cannot bear 
all fruits,—so each nation has had some special 
impulse to give to the progress of the race. Amod- 
ern nation, however civilized, cannot do the work 
which was committed to an ancient tribe, of 
choosing out the habitable parts of the earth and 
sowing the seed which all subsequent times have 
been reaping. The Greeks and Romans, the 
Egyptians and Persians, Cyrus, whom God owned 
as His servant, and many besides, had their 
peculiar functions in the education of the race 
and in preparing the world for Christ. But the 
Jews were called to a distinctive place. A dif- 
ferent species of fruit was expected from them. 
Their special function was to acknowledge Christ 
when He came, and to form His kingdom. This 


296 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


fruit they had not borne. Asa nation they had 
failed, and seemed likely yet to fail, whatever in- 
dividuals among them had done and were yet to 
do.. Having failed and continuing to fail, they 
would become mere cumberers of the ground. 
There would be no reason why their national 
existence should be continued. 

The Parable, however, has important personal 
bearings. Every man’s conscience gives the 
Parable a personal application. You would hard- 
ly find any one who would deny that God expects 
some fruit of his life. If you asked yourself or 
any one else, Is it a matter of absolute indiffer- 
ence to God what results from your life? you 
would be answered, That it is impossible to con- 
ceive of God at all without supposing that He 
desires every human life to serve some good pur- 
pose. This, at all events, is Christ’s view. This 
it is which made His life what it was, influential 
to all time, and the unfailing source of the high- 
est energy to all other lives. That is to say, He 
has given us the most cogent of all demonstra- 
tions that in proportion as we accept His view of 
the connection of our life with God, shall we re- 
semble Him in the utility and permanent result 
of all we do. It has become obvious that in the 
world of nature nothing is isolated and independ- 
ent, but that everything is connected more or 
less remotely with everything else ; that all nature 
is one whole, governed by one ie and fulfilling 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 297 


one purpose. Human lives are under the same 
law. No life is outside of the plan which com- 
prehends the whole; every life contributes some- 
thing to the fulfilment of the great purpose all are 
to serve. Our Lord tells us that this purpose is 
in the mind of God, and that He judges us by our 
fulfilment or non-fulfilment of His will. And that 
we should be reluctant to bring forth fruit to God, 
or hesitate to live for Him, has its root in the fool- 
ish and objectionable idea that God and we have 
opposing interests, so that to help out God’s idea 
of the world and to work with Him and towards 
His end is really not ourbest. Nothing seems to 
teach us that God is all on our side. It has taken 
men six thousand years to find out some part of the 
provision for our good which He has laid up in 
the material world, and it seems it will takeus 
even longer to discover the provision He has made 
for feeling and thought and for spiritual strength 
and joy. 

But not only has each human life a purpose ; 
most men have the more or less distinct perception 
that they are as fig-trees among vines ; that they 
have peculiar opportunities not given to other 
men, and that in one way or other they enjoy 
special advantages. The fig-tree of the Parable 
was not lost among a forest of precisely similar, 
equally cared-for and equally uncared-for trees; 
it was one, standing by itself among plants of dif- 
ferent kind, and receiving different attention. You 


298 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


have little feeling of responsibility to God so long 
as you think you have dropped into your place 
casually asthe seed blown by the wind, or that 
what you receive you receive not because it is 
suitable for you, and therefore given by God, but 
only because you and all around you are included in 
some general order of things, and dealt with in the 
mass and regardless of individual characteristics. 
But if you deal with God about your life at all, 
you find it to be necessarily implied that you as- 
cribe to Him a constant watchfulness overit and a 
power to introduce what is needful for you, and 
to give you all that is needed for fruit-bearing, 
for accomplishing His purpose. 

The position, then, that you occupy and the 
advantages you enjoy are the indication that God 
means your life to serve agood purpose. If you 
look at life with the secret or expressed conviction 
that it is a pitiful and contemptible thing from 
which nothing good can result, it will in your case 
become a contemptible and barren affair. But 
begin with the belief that God’s purposes are 
worth accomplishing, and that they can be and are 
being accomplished by men, and that you may ac- 
complish them and this will give to your life a 
steady and hopeful energy, and put your life on 
the only track that is really eternal. Aman may 
indeed find the thought rising in him, that as 
some nations have served God’s purpose by war, 
by godless culture, by living out their own nature 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 299 


irrespective of God, so may I accomplish His pur- 
pose although I pursue the bent of my own nature 
and build up my life solely in accordance with 
my own views and plans. But why has God given 
you light about His will if He meant you to 
make no use of it ? Youcan only judge of the kind 
of fruit God wishes you to bear by considering 
the position He has set you in; and you can bear 
that fruit only by using a// the advantages He has 
given you. The gardener leaves some plants out 
and unsheltered, but others he brings into the 
walled garden, and some he puts under glass; and 
if the vine were treated like a gooseberry bush, 
it would bear neither grapes nor yet gooseberries. 
So if we exclude or neglect influences which God 
has seen fit to furnish us with, we must be fail- 
ing to produce the fruit He wishes. If He has 
brought you light in Christ which you are not 
making any use of, if you decline to live in that 
communion with the heart of all spiritual life 
which exists in the Father of spirits, then it must 
be that you are failing to produce the fruit for 
the sake of producing which He has given you 
these advantages. Are you sure there is nothing 
to be gained by fellowship with Christ ? are you 
sure that youcan be as complete a man without 
this person who felt it in Him to draw all men to 
Him ? are you sure that you can serve every good 
and worthy purpose just as well without any di- 
rect help from Him as with it ? Because, if you 


300 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


are not sure, then it is obvious that, for all you 
know, you are shutting out an influence which 
would simply make all the difference between 
bearing fruit and not doing so; between your 
life serving the best purpose possible and serving 
a purpose disappointing and disastrous; between 
fruit borne on the south side of a high brick wall 
and fruit borne or attempted on the north side. 
And what can be more utterly humiliating than 
to have our life examined by absolute insight and 
the most loving justice, and to be pronounced bar- 
ren? To fail in any one department of life is hu- 
miliating enough, but to fail over the whole, and to 
find that the whole thing is gone for nothing, must 
be impossible to bear. To have consciously failed 
in helpfulness to a friend, or to have failed as 
a son or asa parent, to have quite disappointed 
one who was trusting to us, makes a markon our 
conscience we do not easily cover over; to be en- 
gaged with others in a work all of which is re- 
tarded or spoiled by a piece of stupidity or neglect 
on our part, affects us with a very sensible shame. 
But think of failing in what our whole life was 
given us to accomplish! How vain to defend 
ourselves by affirming that if we have not pleased 
God and borne the fruit He desired, we have yet 
not lived in vain! A young surgeon is appointed 
to an hospital, but the mortality greatly in- 
creases; inquiry is made, and it is found that 
he has neglected his duties. He is charged with 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 301 


neglect, and acknowledges it. ‘ But,” he says, 
“come with me, and I will show you I have not 
been idle.” He takes the authorities to his room, 
and shows them a freshly finished painting or a 
half-written book which he expects will make his 
fortune. No one questions whether such a per- 
son will be retained or dismissed. 

For the charge of bringing forth no fruit is not 
the only one which the owner of the fig-tree brings 
against it. It also cumbered the ground, took 
up a place in his vineyard which might be more 
profitably used. It not only bore no fruit itself, 
but “sucked the soil’s fertility ” from wholesome 
and productive plants. It used up room and 
nourishment which another tree might have used 
for fruit-bearing. This tree had given promise, 
and because of its promising appearance had 
been set where it was—but it failed. And it re- 
minds us of the guilt we incur when we engage 
to perform duties which nevertheless we neglect. 
Had we not professed a willingness to perform 
them, others would have been found to do them. 
Had we not thrust ourselves forward, or would 
we only stand aside and yield the duties to others, 
they would be performed ; but by taking engage- 
ments upon us and not fulfilling them, we both 
omit our own part and prevent others from per- 
forming it: like a crowd idly gazing from the 
shore at a man drowning, and hindering the one 
eager to rescue who cannot make his way to the 


302 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


water's edge through the idle mass. Have you 
never seen some one spoiling a piece of work 
which you were sure you could do well, but with 
which you cannot interfere because the other is 
the party engaged to do it? Far better that he 
were out of the way; but until he is discharged 
by acompetent authority, he must be allowed, 
not only to spoil the work himself, but to prevent 
any one else from doing it well. The reason why 
no one interferes with your work is not always 
that it is perfectly satisfactory. You may blun- 
der and weary, you may do your work in a per- 
functory and slovenly way, but while you occupy 
the place, the better workman cannot interfere to 
mend matters. 

It is a saddening but also a stimulating reflec- 
tion, that many duties might be better performed 
were we out of the way. To many parents it 
must occur that their children would have been 
better provided for in an orphan hospital, some- 
times even better clothed and fed, better in- 
structed in religion, with a more worthy example 
to incite them to well-doing, and receiving a bet- 
ter start in life than they can do while their nat- 
ural guardians are alive and engaged to perform 
duties which are almost wholly neglected. And 
in many directions in which our relations in life 
branch out, it may well shame us to look upon 
the dead barren twigs into which we send no 
sap, and which might be all beautified and bend- 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 303 


ing under mellow fruit were some other enjoying 
the place that we occupy with our lifeless bulk. 
If others had had our advantages, is it not prob- 
able that more beneficial results would have ap- 
peared? If others had enjoyed the same parent- 
age, the same thoughtful prayerful love watching 
over their early years, the same clear light regard- 
ing duty, the same encouragement to well-doing,— 
if others had received as fully as we of what is 
thoroughly beneficial in life, or what goes to form 
character and to make the conduct wholesome 
and helpful,—is it not likely that fruit of a rarer 
quality and of greater abundance would have 
appeared ? 

It is impossible that such waste of ground 
should be suffered forever in such a vineyard as 
this of the Parable. If weon whom certain duties 
are depending are the very persons who prevent 
these duties from being done, this is not a state 
of things which a wise God willallow. Indolence, 
distrust, anything which hinders us from working 
harmoniously with God, must be removed and 
is being removed from His dominion. Such 
things can only be suffered for a time, and do not 
belong to the eternal condition of things. There- 
fore God in His mercy warns us that all such ob- 
structive dispositions must be abolished. Here 
Christ in His office of Saviour and Intercessor is 
represented as interposing between the owner and 
the barren tree : “ Lord,” He says, “let it alone 


304 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


this year also. Let me give it onechance more, 
let me do my utmost for it.” This request is 
acceded to, but on the distinct understanding that 
this isa last chance. It is agreed on both sides 
that if fruit be not now borne, the end has come. 
There will be no more pleading. The spade will 
be thrown aside and the axe lifted. There is no 
hurry in the matter, but a distinct agreement— 
one thing or other must be done—either the fruit 
borne or the tree cut down. As it is said, ‘‘God 
does not pay on Saturdays, but at last He pays.” 
His judgments are not weekly, but they are 
infallibly certain. Every delay He makes, He 
makes with a distinct understanding of what He 
means by it, of how long it isto be and of what 
will take place at the expiry of the term. There 
comes a time when even the tears of Christ will 
not save us; when even He can do no more than 
weep. 

The Jews accordingly received their year of 
grace. Judgment was delayed for forty years; 
for a generation. Time was given for passions to 
die down, for prejudice to pass away, for reflec- 
tion to be made on all that Christ had been and 
done. The tree was digged about and well cared 
for. Means never before used were now used. 
Preachers as zealous as the old prophets and with 
more telling words to utter held clearly before 
them the king they had disowned. The trees 
planted near them all began to yield fruit. In 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 305 


fact, as every one sees, it was useless trying to 
do more to bring them to acknowledge Christ; 
nothing more could be done. And so the heavy 
hand of Rome which so long had been held back 
was at last allowed to fall, and the nation went 
to pieces under the blow. 

But when the old tree is torn up by the storm, 
what chiefly astonishes us is to see that the mass 
below the ground has been almost as widespread 
as the branches above: that each branch and leafy 
twig that has waved in the air is represented by 
an unseen root or sucker below which has fed and 
sustained it ; and so if you look below the surface 
through this period of grace, your eye lights upon 
the sustaining love of God, your ear discerns 
the regretful, dirge-like mourning that breathed 
through the words, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” 
the bitter disappointment and yearning that can 
only with deepest sorrow and pain give up hop- 
ing and that still repeats, ‘Oh that My people had 
hearkened unto Me, and Israel had walked in My 
ways! I would soon have subdued their enemies, 
and turned My hand against their adversaries.” 

This Parable, then, bears in it a strong encour- 
agement that may well pervade and strengthen 
our whole life. For this vinedresser had not 
interceded for the tree unless he had thought it 
possible that fruit might yet be borne; and you 
may be sure the pains he spent on that tree would 


exceed all that he spent on the rest. You can 
Zo 


306 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


fancy him leaning on his spade and carefully 
studying it, thinking of it as he went home at 
sundown, talking it over with neighboring vine- 
dressers, and coming out early to try some fresh 
method, resolved that it should lose nochance of 
mending. And were our ear keen enough to hear 
the deliberations and judgments pronounced now 
in the spiritual world, might not some of us be- 
come aware that we ourselves were under discus- 
sion and that the time of our final probation had 
come ; that methods were now being tried with 
us which, if they fail, cannot be renewed? If 
hitherto you have done little for God, and if 
lately the thought of your opportunities of doing 
good service has been borne in upon you, if your 
advantages have been strikingly increased, your 
position improved, and hindrances taken out of 
the way, then ought you not in reason to con- 
strue this into a renewed invitation on God’s part 
that you should make up your mind at length to 
live for Him? Suppose you could overhear the 
remarks passed upon your condition by these un- 
seen Overseers, suppose you could overhear what 
is thought of your past and what is resolved re- 
garding your future, have you no reason to be- 
lieve that you would hear remarks very similar 
to those which were called forth by this tree from 
the persons who stood and considered it? If it 
be so, if you are now to be put on a final trial, 
then He who seeks and longs that you win is at 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 307 


your side to give you every advantage, such ar- 
rangement of your worldly circumstances as is 
most likely to tell upon you for good, such influ- 
ences brought to bear upon you as you must con- 
sciously resist if you are not to bring forth fruit, 
such promptings of conscience and present light 
about duty as you must shut your eyes to if you 
are not to see and obey. If this consideration 
and treatment of you is going on, and if indeed 
the main reason of your being in life at all is that 
it may go on, then are you not to think what 
may come of it, are you not to bestir yourself to 
some serious and thorough response to God’s 
dealing? If you so bestir yourself, then you are 
certain of success. Christ doestend you. Much 
that He does may be offensive to you, much 
unintelligible; but believe in Him, frankly and 
heartily co-operate with Him ; welcome His efforts 
in your behalf; consider how much fruit His own 
life bore, how, through neglect and contradiction 
of sinners, through unsettlement and poverty and 
at last suffering, He still served God’s purpose. 
Consider how utterly His life gives the lie to all 
within you that would either say that life is easy, 
or that it is fruitless and empty and contemptible. 
Consider Him and His promise that His Spirit, 
which made Him what He was, shall pass into 
you, and take courage to live with Him and like 
Him. Believe that He means you well, believe 
that He understands human life and means to 


308 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


make yours worthy, and that if you co-operate 
with Him, nothing can defeat you. 

There is encouragement also for those who 
have long been striving to serve God. Do not 
despond about your own bad state and its many 
unfavorable symptoms. Do not learn to treat 
life carelessly, as if its duties and trials had no 
reference beyond the present time; do not treat 
this world as if Christ had never been in it and 
had not shown you how everlasting results may 
flow from a brief time spent among men and their 
sins and passions. Do not believe that you are 
left on earth to grope and stumble blind and for- 
lorn to an uncertain termination, but abide in 
Christ and keep your mind occupied with His 
ways and seek His presence, until you feel sure 
that every day comes to you with opportunities 
of living as He did. It may seem very poor fruit 
such soil as you are planted incan produce, but 
leave that to Him; He knows the kind of fruit 
He seeks from your life; and, if it satisfies Him, 
it may satisfy you. Do not fancy that all is over 
with you, and that fruit is what once might have 
been, but now cannot be. Even out of the 
withered hopes that lie damp upon your heart 
and the comforts that have gradually fallen from 
about you and now lie dead and saddening all 
your life, your Lord can bring happiness and prof- 
it to you, can use these disappointments and 
griefs as nature uses the dead leaves of the autumn 


THE BARREN FIG-TREE. 309 


to nourish and feed the spring and the coming 
harvest. Certainly this remains to us all to say: 
I may bring forth fruit to God, it is open to me 
to please and gratify Him, it is open to me to 
make my life worthy of the approval and com- 
mendation of Him compared to whose judgment 
the praise or blame of men is as the bluster of 
the wind that, once heard, dies out forever. 
Life may in other respects be sad and dreary; 
I may be fixed in one cramped and narrow spot 
all my days, enlivened and stimulated by no 
change, the same familiar employments palling 
upon me more drearily every day ; I may have to 
stand out exposed to burning heat or chilling 
storms, and may long for shelter, for comfort, for 
ease, for pleasure, but the want of any or all of 
these ought not to make me think there is no 
object in my life, no good use I can put it to, no 
worthily compensating end it will serve. In the 
assurance of my Lord I mean to abide, that there 
still and always remains to me the possibility of 
doing God’s will, and opportunity of satisfying 
His purpose with me. 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 
LUKE xiv. 16-24. 


THE occasion of this Parable is carefully ex- 
plained by Luke. One Sabbath-day, a leading 
Pharisee of the metropolis had invited a large 
and apparently distinguished company to dinner ; 
possibly the guests were invited on the express 
understanding that they would have an oppor- 
tunity of conversing with Jesus more freely than 
they could ina public place; possibly Jesus was 
a casual guest, asked at the moment. At all 
events the innate authority which shone through 
His bearing and conversation at once disarmed 
His intended critics, and instead of a spirited de- 
bate they found themselves forming an audience 
to this dangerous teacher. It was strictly table- 
talk our Lord here indulged in. His remarks, 
though not calculated to make either host or 
guests feel quite at their ease, were seasonable. 
Perhaps His advice to guests that they should 
modestly take the lowest place is rendered less 
needful in our own society, in which any obtru- 
sive assumption of precedence would be consid- 
ereda breach of good manners. And yet there are 
still extant characters which by kindred vices 


become the bane of all genial and sociable inter- 
310 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 31r 


course. There is the man who uses every dinner- 
table as an occasion for the exhibition of his own 
wit or knowledge or powers of conversation. 
There is the man who is uncomfortable and un- 
happy all the evening if he does not meet with 
full recognition of his importance. There is the 
woman who is offended if you ask her to sit at 
the same table with those whom she considers 
much her inferiors in station. There is the per- 
son who is always thinking of what is due by 
others to himself, never or rarely of what is due 
by him to others. 

To His host, our Lord, as He looks round on 
the richly-clad and well-conditioned guests, re- 
marks that his hospitality might be better ex- 
pended on those who had more need of it. Our 
Lord does not mean to discountenance friendly 
gatherings, which are, have been, and always will 
be among the highest pleasures in life, but He 
means to warn against heartless and hollow civili- 
ties,—against asking people to your house whom 
you really don’t care to see, but to whom you 
must return the doubtful favor they have shown 
you in giving you a similar invitation. Our Lord, 
that is to say, complains of what society itself is 
continually complaining of, that so much time, 
means, thought, and energy are spent on the giv- 
ing and returning of formal civilities which every 
one knows tobe hollow. Where areal advantage 
can be conferred by your hospitality, where the 


312 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. y 


comfort of a stranger can be secured, where inno- 
cent and exhilarating pleasure can be bestowed, 
where you can be the means of forming friend- 
ships useful and satisfactory to yourself and 
others,—in such cases be given to hospitality ; 
but on every account emancipate yourself from 
the dreary, wasteful, resultless round of entertain- 
ments which are likely to be as distasteful and 
heartless to those who receive them as those of 
which they are the recompense were to your- 
self. 

But this kind of talk began to touch the com- 
pany somewhat too nearly, and one of them 
makes an unsuccessful attempt to put an end to 
the conversation by a pious remark that no one 
will be irreverent enough to criticise or throw 
over. The remark is skilful—sufficiently in the 
line of what had previously been said to warrant 
him in making it, sufficiently off the line to change 
the subject, and sufficiently solemn to prevent 
any from violently returning to the old subject. 
“ Blessed,” he says, “ is he that shall eat bread in 
the kingdom of God,’—a most undeniable and 
edifying assertion, and which, for the matter of it, 
might have fallen from the lips of our Lord Him- 
self, but Pharisaic in this, that, under the guise of 
piety, it was intended to turn the conversation 
from what was personal and profitable to a vague 
generality which touched nobody. You can see 
the sanctimonious old hypocrite solemnly shaking 


oN 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 313 


his head, and letting the words fall unctuously 
from his tongue. But with all our Lord’s benig- 
nity and forbearance, there was one thing He 
could not stand, and that was cant. He there- 
fore does not answer the man as if he had been a 
simple soul longing for communion with God, but 
utters a Parable to remind him and the rest that 
a verbal appreciation of the blessedness of the 
kingdom was often joined with an entire refusal 
to enter it. A person with less delicate edge on 
his teaching and less skill to manage a conversa- 
tion, might have bluntly replied to the Pharisee, 
What avails it to extol with so much pious en- 
thusiasm this blessedness, if all the while you 
yourself are rejecting it? 


~The Parable illustrates the difficulty of finding 


any to accept what all acknowledge to be desir- 
able: the lack of all obtrusive eagerness to take 
the place next the host, when the host happens 
to be Divine; and the wisdom of making a feast 
not for the well-to-do, who will rather excuse 
themselves, but for the needy, who will accept the 
invitation with glad surprise. 

Our Lord exposes the insincerity of the Mes- 
sianic expectation which found utterance in such 
expressions as that of the sanctimonious guest, by 
exhibiting the actual treatment which was at the 
same time being given to God’s invitation to the 
Messianic feast. He uttersa Parable which shows 
how hard God finds it to furnish with guests a 


314 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


table He has spread with the utmost bounty. He 
shows that notwithstanding first and second invi- 
tations proclamations of God’s friendship and 
bounty by the prophets and by the Baptist, the 
Jews were so. immersed in political and commer- 
cial schemes that they despised and ignored the 
happiness God had so carefully prepared for 
them. They professed to be waiting for the Mes- 
siah, but when He actually came and offered them 
places in His kingdom, they contemptuously de- 
clined. Of all those who never broke bread with- 
out exclaiming, “‘ Blessed is he that shall eat bread 
in the kingdom of God,” scarcely one was found 
to take his place at the table God actually spread 
before them. To furnish His table with guests 
God had to pass from the first invited and call in 
the outcasts among the Jews themselves, and 
after ransacking the lanes and slums of the city, 
had to go far afield among the highways and 
hedges of the outlying Gentiles that His bounty 
might not be wasted. 
\ ~—~The application of the Parable to our Lord’s 
~ contemporaries is sufficiently obvious. It has 
also obvious applications to ourselves which may 
be briefly indicated. And as it is to the manner 
in which men deal with God’s invitations that the 
Parable directs attention, rather than to the fact 
that the Messianic kingdom is suitably represented 
by a feast, it may be enough to say regarding 
this latter point, that those who actually enter 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 315 


God’s kingdom find all their cravings satisfied, all 
their necessities provided for; and that in the 
present person and work of Christ God’s kingdom 
was open to men, and remains open now to us. 
The feast being prepared, whom will God invite 
to partake of it? For admission to a feast is 
solely by invitation. You may have a strofg 
desire to be at some entertainment which you 
know is to be given; you may have most urgent 
reasons for wishing to be there; your happiness 
for some time to come may, so faras you can 
judge, depend upon your presence; and yet you 
can do nothing but wait for an invitation. The 
idea of going unasked is not once thought of; 
your presence or absence depends entirely on the 
will of another person. If they wish your com- 
pany, or think it advisable to ask you, that de- 
cides the matter. You may see invitations, which 
others have received, but you cannot beg, buy, or 
borrow these. Unless one comes to yourself, 
you remain outside, excluded from the company 
you crave, ignored by the set you long to be in, 
prevented from pursuing your most warmly cher- 
ished plan. The same rule appliesto the feast of 
the Parable. There is a “not transferable”’ im- 
pressed on every invitation issued. It must come 
to-yourself from God, or it is invalid and a for- 
gery. If it were known that only three men ina 
generation were admitted to intimacy with God, 
and that all others were omitted, passed by, and 


316 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


left in exclusion, with what envy would these 
three men be looked upon. Orif it were known 
that a small, indefinite number were chosen in 
each generation, and that for each of them it was 
settled at the age of thirty by some distinguish- 
ing mark appearing on their person, we should 
then feel how completely we were dependent on 
the will of God in this matter. Yet we are as de- 
pendent on His invitation as this would imply. 
If God has prepared nothing for you, what can 
you do? If God does not desire that you be pro- 
vided for, if no place is set apart for you at this 
feast, if He has not had you in view in making 
it, what can you do to mend matters? Do not 
think of salvation as a thing there, ready for you, 
whenever you choose to go and take it. It de- 
pends on God's invitation whether any good 
awaits you. You have first to discover whether 
God in unmistakable words invites you or not. 
Those to whom it was first intimated that the 
supper was ready, had previously been prepared 
for this announcement. They were the Jews the 
well-instructed, Messiah-expectant Jews. They 
were persons who might seem to be on friendly 
terms with the host, and had no appearance of 
destitution. We must look for their counter- 
part in men whose need of salvation does not 
lie on the surface, whose sins are not going 
before them to judgment, and crying out in the 
hearing of all, but who rather seem to be on 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 317 


terms of amity with God, and have no difficulty 
in believing that they are invited to His banquet. 
That which exhibits the true character of these 
men is their actual treatment of a present invita- 
tion; not what they said about it, not the flat- 
tering terms in which they replied to the host, 
but their conduct when summoned to come now 
to the feast. It is this which marks off the real 
friend of God from him whose spurious devotion 
enables him to ejaculate, as he thinks of a future 
and heavenly state, ‘‘ Blessed is he that shall eat 
bread in the kingdom of God.” We are all pre- 
pared to utter such an otiosed sentiment ; but the 
pious contemplation of heavenly blessedness is 
one thing, the entrance upon such friendships 
and habits as make us capable of it is quite 
another thing. The man who provoked the 
Parable was not saying what he did not feel: 
his feeling was present, but it was merely senti- 
mental, with no result in action. Fs 

The Parable gives three specimens of the 
grounds on which men refuse the invitation of 
God, and of the terms in which they couch their 
refusal. 1. The first says: “I have bought a 
piece of ground, and must needs goand see it. I 
pray thee have me excused.’”” No doubt he had 
seen the ground before he bought it, but it was a 
much more interesting sight now. A piece of 
ground, very poor-looking in itself, becomes at- 
tractive toa new purchaser. He can now men- 


318 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


tally divide it out and plan its crops or its build- 
ings. This man ofthe Parable had not been of so 
much consequence in the world when he first 
accepted the invitation. He still sees the desir- 
ableness of maintaining friendship with the host; 
but his invitation does not now seem so attractive 
as it did before he was a landowner. He endeav- 
~ ors, therefore, with a show of courtesy to set up 
an opposing necessity. It isnot, he says, that he 
does not desire to accept the invitation, not at all; 
the host will quite misconceive him if he thinks 
he is not dying to come; but necessity compels 
him to look after his property. He must go and 
take it over, and make arrrangements about its 
use. He is extremely sorry, but so it is. 

The invitation of God comes inopportunely to 
the man who is enjoying the first pleasures of 
proprietorship. He feels himself to be a solid 
part of this world, and is disposed to resent any- 
thing which reminds him that there are claims 
more pressing than even those of his recent invest- 
ment. It will now appear which possession the 
owner thinks most substantial and finds most at- 
tractive, the bit of land or the friendship of God. 
He tries to persuade himself he has a regard for 
God too, and is compelled for a little to defer the 
manifestation of that regard. These are ominous 
necessities indeed which grow up between a man 
and God, and prevent him from enjoying God’s 
friendship. And yet do you not constantly find 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 319 


men speaking of the zecessity of postponing God’s 
will and work to the world’s business? Do not 
men on all hands betray that inwardly they 
put earthly possessions first, God second? They 
profess to be compelled to do so, and to be sorry 
they are compelled ; and do not see that nothing 
compels them but their own likings and will. 

2. The second refusal was worded: “I have 
bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them. 
I pray thee have me excused.” This man merely 
announces his intention, assuming that there can 
be no doubt of its propriety. However disappoint- 
ed the host is, he must see that the guest’s con- 
duct is justifiable. This guest does not stay to 
explain the urgency; he doesnot even condescend 
to say that there isa necessity ; simply states that 
he goes, as if every one must at once recognize 
the reasonableness of his conduct. He is so 
absorbed that he does not even perceive the claims 
the host has upon him. 

Of how many men in their prime does this 
man stand as the representative; men so en- 
grossed in the business or pursuits of the world 
that they positively do not know that God has 
any claims upon their time,—so busy in pushing 
forward mercantile or scientific or literary or 
political or military affairs, that it never once 
occurs to them that there are other objects for 
the sake of which these affairs should be fora 
time suspended. All men appreciate what con- 


320 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD, 


tributes to bodily comfort, to convenience of 
moving from place to place, to rapidity in attaining 
a competence; and those arts and skilful ap- 
plications of science which are daily with increas- 
ing success contributing to these ends, come to 
be almost worshiped by us. There is a palpable 
utility which imparts a dignity to the cultivation 
of the arts which enlarge and beautify life, and 
few escape the temptation to ascribe to them even 
greater power than they possess. When we do 
choose them as our pursuit in life, and discover 
the real wonders they work, and the mysterious 
and apparently limitless powers that lie in them, 
we are fascinated. To check a man in the 
launching of some great undertaking which is to 
bring material advantage to a city or country, to 
recall him from the abstraction of deep research, 
or the anxiety of fine and prolonged experiment, 
to interrupt him in a calculation of some large 
financial scheme, to invite him to curtail the time 
he gives to business for the sake of entering more 
fully into the enjoyment of fellowship with God 
—this seems to many a mana mere impertinence, 
an absurdity bordering on madness. The objects 
for which men labor are to them so real and com- 
manding that they do not see that they are re- 
quired to justify an entire devotion of themselves 
to these objects. A man’s life seems to be nobly 
spent in subduing the powers of nature to the use 
of his fellow-men; but these powers, how mys- 


a 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 321 


terious and beautiful soever they be, are but as 
the five yoke of oxen when compared with that 
closest intercourse with the God of nature to ‘ 
which we are invited. And as this man would 
have had more temper to manage his young oxen 
in the morning had he treated his host with proper 
respect, and put friendship before self-interest, so 
there is no one of us who will not make a better 
use of the powers of this world if he himself is 
inspired with the thoughts and purposes which 


spring from fellowship wi : 
3. e third who refuses to go to the supper 


gives as his reason: “I have married a wife, and 
therefore Icannot come.” Theseseveral grounds 
of refusal are instanced as illustrating that any- 
thing is considered sufficient ground, and as 
showing also the various engagements which 
occupy men to the exclusion of fellowship with 
God, rather than because each has some distinct- 
ive and significant feature. If it be supposed 
that this refusal is distinctive, then it may be 
said that it reminds us that pleasure as well as 
business prevents us from paying due regard to 
the appeals of God. Marriage, if not always 
really so, is at least symbolically joyful; and it 
seems to this man that the host takes quite the 
wrong time to invite him. So, with a greater 
harshness than the former decliners, he almost 
rudely refuses the invitation. Many feel as if 


God’s invitations came at the wrong time. They 
21 


322 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


think God might stand aside for a little. The 
thought of perfect purity, ofa life of consecration, 
of devotedness to the highest aims, of renunciation 
of all that is paltry and self-pleasing, comes 
inopportunely when they have just launched on 
a current that promises quiet domestic pleasure, 
and a happiness that tempts to forgetfulness of 
others’ woes and wants. 

The three refusals have this incommon, that 
under a very thin disguise there lies a real indif- 
ference tothefeast. They had better engagements 
elsewhere—more exciting, profitable, and pleasant 
than conversation with their professed friend. 
His kind intentions are nothing to them: what- 
ever he can have provided for their entertainment 
is beneath their notice. They can apologize 
afterwards, but meanwhile they must attend to 
more important matters. Had they really liked 


his society and heartily honored him, they 


would have found it easy to go. Theland would 
not have vanished before next day; the cattle 
would have been proved in time to get to the 
feast ; and even the wife would not have been an 


insuperable difficulty. But any engagement was 
enough to compete with one they wished to de-— 


cline. And the Parable is spoken that men may 
be warned and may see clearly how amidst con- 


siderable profession of friendship with God there 


may exist a real distaste for His society and His 
pleasures. If there is anything else to attend to, 


a = 


_ 


= 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 323 


it will receive our firstattention. God is postponed 
‘to everything else. This fact, so obvious in the 
life of many of us, should let light in upon our true 
_ state of heart ; and it will let light in where such 
light is honestly desired. It is a severe Parable, 
| saying very pointedly to many now as to this sanc- 
_timonious person who provoked it, That is your 
_ real estimate of communion with God: youtalk a 
great deal about it, you extol spiritual pleasures, 
so that, to hear you, one would suppose you 
' scarcely belonged to earth, but your life reveals a 
_very different state of matters. Judging by your 
verbal acknowledgments of the excellence and in- 
| finite superiority of spiritual to worldly things one 
_would expect to find you absorbed in the work of 
Christ, but your actions give the lie to your words, 
_and prove them to be pitiful cant—phrases with 
which you unintentionally blind yourself to your 
_ real likings. 
| Judging, then, not from our words, not from 
: the easy phrases that drop from our lipsas readily 





as remarks about the weather, but judging from 
our life and actions, where are we to say that our 
real pleasures lie? What is it for which we will 
defer any engagement? what is it we never forget, 
| mever neglect, never find tedious and an unwel. 
| come interruption? Let us know this; for it is 
| not our profession that we ought to be spiritual, 
nor our acknowledgment that we ought to love 
God that avails; but what avails is our being 


324 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


spiritual and our actually loving God above all. 
When we think of the kingdom of God as a future 
state in which all shall be assembled as toa family 
gathering in the quiet and cool of evening, it is 
easy to express desire to be present there. Who 
does not feel some desire to see face-to-face the 
real person of the Lord, and have leisure to scan 
the features of this Host to whom he is so inti- 
mately linked? Who does not desire to exchange 
thoughts with Him, and so to learn how personal 
and searching is the interest the Lord has taken 
in him? But these desires are apt to be merely 
sentimental, and before we trust them they must 
be tested by the actual use we now make of the 
access to Christ we already have. 

~The doom of those who reject God’s invitation 
is plainly pronounced. They are passed by, and 
the offer is made to others. Paul, seeing this 
doom accomplished, said, “Through their fall— 
the fall of the Jews—salvation is come to the Gen- 
tiles.” Does the threat that none of those who 
were bidden should taste of His supper seem by 
no means very terrible? Does it strike you as 
extravagant and grandiloquent to put sucha threat 
in the form of athreat at all? And yet I suppose 
there are persons you so esteem that, if sucha 
message came from them, you would feel that 
disgrace had fallen upon you, and that until you 
were justly reinstated in the goodwill and friend- 
ship of those persons, your life must be clouded 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 325 


and full of bitterness. Is it less ignominious to 
treat God with disrespect, and less disastrous to 
be excluded from His favor? Suppose you were 
sure that this doom had been pronounced upon 
you, and that therefore it was quite vain for you 
to expect God’s help or blessing in any matter 
you have to do with,—suppose you had the pros- 
pect of entering the world of spirits unaided and 
uncared for, and that while others were seen to 
and provided for by God, you were left to your- 
self,—suppose you had reason to know that God, 
who is slowest to take offense and never unjust, 
is offended with you, and henceforth renounces 
you, deleting your name from among His friends, 
—would this not affect you with shame? would it 
not at least move you to consider what just cause 

of offense you have given, and would it excite no 


anxiety ; or is it all one to you whether there 


opens up before you an eternity full of brightness 


and hope, calculated to call out every high senti- 


ment and all worthy activity in you, or one that 


is full of gloom, disappointment, and misery, the 
lot of lost, defeated, sunken, degraded souls? 


The invitation, when despised by those to whom 
it was originally addressed, was conveyed to those 
who could least of all anticipate any such com- 
munication. The class of outcasts described in 
the Parable is recognizable at all times. Theyare — 


those who seem to be beyond help and hope—the 


maimed, the blind, the vagrant, the destitute, the 


326 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


criminal. Such descriptions are self-interpreting 
Whoever finds himself in a wretched and aban 
doned condition is taught here that God invites 
him to His table. He who cannot discover in his 
condition one hopeful symptom; he who is crushed 
and defeated; he who has been maimed in the 
service of sin, and has laid himself down by the 
hedge-side, to let the busy stream of life run past 
without noticing him; he who is utterly weary 
and heart-broken, and knows not how he can ever 
be restored to virtuous and serviceable living—to 
him comes God’s invitation to the utmost of His 
bounty. The servants were sent to invite promis- 
cuously every one they found: bold sinners in 
the streets, secret and shamefaced sinners in the 
lanes, proud sinners in the highways, and woe- 
begone sinners by the hedges; wherever they 
found a man, wherever human life yet stirred the 
mass of filthy rags, that they were to bring to the 
feast. 

Such persons were to be compelled to come in, 
The servants were not to let them away to dress 
themselves under promise of coming in an hour. 
They were to bring them as they stood oras they 
lay. They were to take no excuse, but were to 
“compel” them to come. They were to use the 
strongest persuasion in their power; to allow no 
shame, no sense of unworthiness, no fear of offend- 
ing the host, no remembrance of wrongs done to 
the host, to deter them; but they were to use 


THE GREAT SUPPER. 327 


authority, argument, entreaty, everything to move 


them ; or doing less, they did less than their mas- | 


ter’s pleasure. They were not merely to walk 
along the highways with a placard, or to proclaim 
as they passed by that any who chose might go. 
They were to lay their hands on the men, and 
compel them to listen. They were to represent 
théir master’s cordiality and urgency. They were 
not to leave any in doubt as to how they would 
be received, and they were not to let any away 
with amere promise to come. They were to bring 
them. And if the lame gave as an excuse that 
they could not go, orif the blind said they would 
have been glad to go had they been able to find 
their way, the servant was to become eyes to the 
blind and feet to the lame; he was not to think 
he had cleared his conscience by giving them the 
invitation, but was to see them inside the guest- 
chamber. Such is the freedom and such the 
urgency of the Gospel of Christ. 


THE LOST SHEEP AND LOST PIECE 
OF MONEY. 


LUKE xv. 1-10. 


THE heathen philosopher Seneca made a prac- 
tise of dining with his slaves, and when challenged 
for an innovation so directly in the teeth of all 
customary proprieties and so offensive to the 
Roman mind, he defended himself by saying that 
he dined with some because they were worthy of 
his esteem, and with others that they might be- 
come so. The action and its defense were alike 
admirable, and read a salutary lesson to the 
aristocrats of Rome. But it was even a greater 
shock to the Pharisees, and, if possible, even 
more unaccountable, that Jesus should prefer the 
society of notorious sinners to their own irre- 
proachable manners and decorous conversation. 
They were honestly surprised and nonplussed by 
His treatment of these abandoned characters. 
They could not understand why a teacher of holy 
life, instead of frowning upon the notoriously 
profligate, should show a preference for their 
society. Our Lord’s explanation is ample and 
thorough. It was of extreme importance that 
His demeanor towards sinners should be made 


perfectly intelligible, and that its reasonableness 
328 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 329 


should be put beyond a doubt. He devotes, 
therefore, the three Parables recorded in this 
chapter to this purpose. 

It is perhaps worth remarking that on one 
point He felt that no explanation was required. 
Even the Pharisees did not suspect Him of any 
sympathy with sin. These critics of His con- 
duct had not failed to remark that in His pres- 
ence the daring profanity and audacious license 
of wicked men were tamed. They could not 
but remark that into these doubtful companies 
He carried an influence that quite overmastered 
the habitual manners and tendencies of the de- 
graded creatures among whom He so unosten- 
tatiously took His place. They never suspected 
Him of any desire to be initiated into the mys- 
teries of crime, nor was any one blind enough to 
fancy He had some secret liking for the talk and 
experiences of the vicious. When Samuel John- 
son, late one night, found a poor woman lying 
on the streets of London, exhausted with want, 
disease, and poverty, and carried her home on 
his back, and nursed her with all tenderness and 
sought to put her in a virtuous way of living, no 
one misconstrued his motives. It was seen to 
be the Christ-like act of a simple, great, and 
charitable nature. But while the contemporaries 
of our Lord did not suppose He had any per- 
sonal relish for sin, they still held it to be an 
unaccountable if not blameworthy feature of 


330 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


His conduct that He received sinners and ate 
with them. Foras we sometimes find ourselves 
laying to a man’s charge that which is his chief 
claim to our regard, and citing that as his weak- 
ness which in reality is his strength, so did the 
Pharisees and scribes bring against our Lord as 
a damning accusation that very habit which is 
His eternal praise: ‘“‘ This man receiveth sinners.” 
The most desolate and broken soul cannot desire 
any better account of the Saviour’s work than is 
thus given by those who were reading off the 
most obvious facts of His life. 

Those who so narrowly criticised our Lord's 
conduct might have seen its reasonableness had 
they been able to look at it from another point 
of view. With equal surprise they might have 
exclaimed: ‘Sinners receive this man and eat 
with Him.” Among them it wasa new thing 
that the godly should consort with sinners; but 
surely it was equally novel that sinners should seek 
the company of One whose conversation was in- 
stinct with purity and breathed of heaven. Could 
the people recall many instances in which outcasts 
and profligates had been seen longing to talk with 
a man whose words were all of purity and right- 
eousness? These dissolute and lawless characters 
could themselves have explained the change. 
They were attracted to Jesus because, together 
with unmistakable sanctity, and even somehow ap- 
pearing as the chief feature of His sanctity, there 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 331 


was an understanding of the sinner’s position and 
a hopefulness about him which threw a hitherto 
unknown spelloverthem. Separate from sinners, 
as they had never before felt any one to be, He 
seemed to come closer to their heart by far than 
any otherhad come. He hada heart open to all 
their troubles. He saw them through and through, 
and yet showed no loathing, no scorn, no aston- 
ishment, no perplexity, no weariness. Instead of 
meeting them with upbraiding, and showing them 
all they had lost, He gave them immediate en- 
trance into His own pure, deep, efficient love, and 
gladdened their hearts with a sense of what they 
yet had in Him. 

Therefore men whose seared conscience felt no 
other touch, who had a ready scoff for every other 
form of holiness, admitted this new power and 
yielded toit. Oldsinners broke down before Him, 
and with tears and simplicity as when they had 
sobbed out their first fault on their mother’s bosom, 
repented of their weary life of sin. Men from 
whom the Roman lash could draw no word of 
confession; men whom society had branded as 
outcasts and who flung back on society a scorn as 
contemptuous as itsown; men who had long since 
abandoned all belief in goodness, and who de- 
lighted in showing their disbelief, were not 
ashamed even in the publicstreets, to own to Him 
their sin and to supplicate His mercy. Women 
whose vanity and light-heartedness had led them 


332 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


to self-loathing and despair, who forced a ghastly 
gaiety from hearts that lay cold and heavy as stone 
in their breasts, found to their astonishment that 
Christ did not shrink from them, but spoke to 
them with a tenderness and a hope which were 
new sounds to them. The disheartened, the pol- 
luted, the ruined, the degraded came to Him, be- 
cause in Him they found an inexhaustible com- 
passion. He did not give advice; He did not 
warn; He did not send them away with minute 
directions for godly living ;—there were plenty 
who could do that—He received them, opened to 
them His heart, and gave them to feel through 
their whole being that they were loved and thought 
of by this highest and purest of persons. 

The contrast between this new attitude of a 
holy person towards the sinner and that to which 
men had commonly been accustomed, has been 
finely described in the following words: ‘* He 
who thought most seriously of the disease held 
it to be curable; while those who thought less 
seriously of it pronounced it incurable. Those 
who loved their race a little made war to the 
knife against its enemies and oppressors; He 
who loved it so much as to die for it, made over- 
tures of peace to them. The half-just judge 
punished the convicted criminal; the thoroughly 
just Judge offered him forgiveness. Perfect jus- 
tice here appears to take the very course which 
would be taken by injustice.” 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 333 






It is this, then, that calls for explanation. | 
And it is explained by our Lord in three 
Parables, each of which illustrates the fact that 
a more active interest in any possession is 
aroused by the very circumstance that it is lost. | 
The sheep that is lost is not on that account | 
disregarded by the shepherd but receives for the | 
time greater attention than those which remain | 
in the fold. The piece of money that has gone 
—— SO” 
amissing becomes on that very account of greater 
immediate importance to the woman than all she 
has safe in her jar in the cupboard. If one of a 
family turns out ill, it isa small mitigation that 
all the rest turn out well; it is after the lost the 
parent’s heart persistently goes. So is it with 
God. The very circumstance that men have 
strayed from Him evokesin Him a more manifest 
and active solicitude in their behalf. The attitude 
of God and of Christ towards sinners is reduced 
to the great principle, that anything which is lost 
and may be regained exercises our thought more 
and calls out a more solicitous regard than a 
thing of equal value which rests securely in our 
possession. 

This is the principle which these Parables are 
intended to illustrate: that with God as with 
men that which is lost occupies, for the time and 
until restored, more of His thought and provokes 
clearer and larger manifestations of His love than 
that which has not been lost or is already restored. 


334 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


The figures used for the purpose of illustration 
must not be pushed too far. They are not so 
much images of our state as instances of the 
application of one common principle. They 
are instances of lost articles; that is all. It is 
merely accidental that there is a resemblance 
between the silly sheep that heedlessly nibbles 
the sweet grass that lies before it and so crops 
its way from spot to spot of pasture till it 
is utterly lost, and the man who looks only to 
present gratification and so strays on with the 
same foolish thoughtlessness and unconsciousness 
of danger, and is only awakened to see how near 
akin thoughtlessness is to wickedness by finding 
himself involved in inextricable difficulties and 
threatened with danger of the most alarming 
kind. In like manner it may be said that we 
resemble lost coin that has fallen out of circula- 
tion and is lying unused and being gradually 
tarnished, defaced, and buried in dust; for we 
too have been issued with the image of our 
Maker upon us, but are gradually suffering it to 
be defaced and are dropping aside from all service- 
able living. But the points of the comparison for 
the sake of which these illustrative instances are in- 
troduced are simply the lostness of the sheep, 
the money, and ourselves alike; the consequent 
concentration of attention on what is lost; and 
the joy of finding it again. 

1. The first point, then, suggested by these 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 335 


Parables is, that God suffers loss in every sinner 
that departs from Him. To the Pharisaic mind 
this was a new light on the character of God. 
The Pharisee himself trusted little to tenderness, 
much to rigid law. Naturally he thought of God 
also as standing upon His rights, enforcing His 
will by compulsion, and with equanimity punish- 
ing and driving into permanent exile those who 
have strayed from Him. It is a revelation to 
them to hear that the lostness of the sinner is 
God’s loss; that God suffers more than the sinner 
in the separation. For God loves the sinner and 
this love is wounded, whereas the sinner has no 
love for God that can be wounded by separa- 
tion. The silly sheep is quite satisfied with its 
state, while the shepherd’s heart beats fast with 
anxiety about its possible fate. It is not the son 
but the mother whose hair turns gray with slow 
anguish as she marks the increasing frequency 
with which he is absent from her fireside, and 
how he is becoming lost to her. So it is God 
who suffers, and not the heartless sinner, who, 
without a thought of the wounds he is inflicting, 
goes his own wretched way and courts the des- 
truction which Christ died to save him from. All 
the broken-heartedness of parents who year by 
year watch the failure of all their efforts to lead 
some misguided child to well-doing; all the crush- 
ing anguish of wives who see their husbands 
slowly hardening in vice and sinking out of reach 


336 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


of their love; all the varied misery that love 
must endure in this sinful world, is after all but 
the reflection of what Infinite Love suffers in 
sympathy with every sinner who spurns it and 
chooses death. Look at the sorrow of God in 
Christ, and say whether the loss God suffers in 
your separation from Him is true or feigned. 

This was what the Pharisees had wholly left 
out of account, that God loves men and mourns 
over every ill that befalls them. And this is what 
we find it so hard to believe. It is only very 
slowly we come to believe even in human love. 
With difficulty we believe that there are persons 
to whom it would give real pleasure to make a 
sacrifice for us. How impossible is it for a child 
to understand the love his parent has for him. 
How few of us conceived anything of the tender- 
ness and intensity and persistence and self-sacrifice 
of parental love, till we ourselves grew up and 
had it interpreted to us by our own feelings. In 
some of us, grief for lost friends or parents has 
been embittered by the thought of what we might 
and would have done for them, had we only 
sooner learned what we have since discovered of 
their love for us. Are none of us preparing for 
ourselves a similar remorse by our neglect of that 
Love which is the true spring of all other affection, 
and itself greater than all ? 

These Parables thus bring us face to face with 
the most significant and fertile of all realities, 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 337 


God’s love forus. This love encompasses you 
whether you will or no. Love never asks leave; 
it cannot ; it enters like sunshine, and often where 
it seems much out of place. You may destroy all 
love to God in your own soul, but you cannot 
destroy His love for you. It persists, because 
it is love. It waits patiently for requital; it 
humbles itself to be often slighted, often mis- 
construed, often refused. Can it be true that God 
loves you; that you yourself are connected by 
this most fruitful of ties to the eternal God? 
Surely there is no question that may more worthily 
engage the attention. It will not do fora man 
to persuade himself he is honorable and right- 
minded, if he is making no account of this ex- 
penditure of love upon him. This is no question 
of casuistry that plain men need not trouble their 
heads about. It is no question of doctrine which 
a man may believe or disbelieve, and still remain 
sound at heart. It isa question regarding your 
conduct towards a Person, a question that touches 
what lies deepest in our life and character. 

2. Secondly, these Parables suggest that the 
very fact of our being lost excites action of a 
specially tender kind toward us. God does not 
console Himself for our loss by the fellowship of 
those who have constantly loved Him. He does 
not call new creatures into being and so fill up 
the blank we have made by straying from Him, 


He is not a Sovereign who has no personal knowl. 
22 


338 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


edge of His subjects, nor an employer of labor 
who can always get afresh hand to fill an emptied 
post: He is rather a shepherd who knows His 
sheep one by one, a Father who loves His children 
individually. He would rather restore the most 
abandoned sinner than blot him from his place to 
substitute an archangel. Love is personal and 
settles upon individuals. It is not all the same 
to God if some other person is saved while you 
are not. 


“ Thou art as much His care as if beside 
Nor man nor angel lived in heaven or earth.” 


When men sin, therefore, and fall into difficul- 
ties, God cannot remain indifferent or quiescent. 
Interference of a direct and special kind becomes 
necessary. Thenormal relations being disturbed, 
and man becoming helpless by the disturbance, it 
falls to God to restore matters. A new set of 
ideas and dealings is brought into play. So long 
as things go smoothly and men by nature love 
God and seek to do His will, there is no anxiety, 
no meeting of emergencies by unexpected effort, 
hidden resources, costly sacrifice. But when sin 
brings into view all that is tragic, and when utter 
destruction seems to be man’s appointed destiny, 
there is called into exercise the deepest tender- 
ness, the utmost power of the Divine nature. 
Here wherc the profoundest feeling of God is con- 
cerned, where His connection with His own chil- 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 339 


dren is threatened, Divinity is stirred to its 
utmost. 

This appears, among other things, in the spon- 
taneity and persistence of the search God insti- 
tutes for the lost. The shepherd who misses one 
of his flock does not sit down by the ninety and 
nine in the pasture, but straightway goes in search 
of the lost. He does not expect that it will seek 
him; he goes after it. He does not expect to 
meet it coming home to him, so that if he had 
only waited and left it to itself, it would have 
found its own way back. On the contrary, he 
knows the recovery of the sheep depends wholly 
on himself and he prepares himself for trouble, 
provocation, risk. On him must fall the burden 
of finding it, of devising means of rescue and of 
bringing it back to the fold. Yet men sometimes 
seem to suppose that God is not alive to their 
dangers, but needs to be aroused to take a livelier 
interest in their condition and to help them in 
their strivings against evil. Heis thought of as 
sitting coldly watching our passionate and almost 
despairing struggles to break away from evil and 
make our way back to a pure and helpful life; as 
if He were saying, I will let this sinner learn what 
it is to have strayed from Me. But it is not so: 
God is as truly beforehand with the sinner as the 
shepherd with thesheep. The initiative is God’s; 
and all that you desire or do in the way of return 
to righteousness is prompted by Him. He has 


340 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


already sufficiently shown that He is alive to the 
emergency and that no trouble is too great, no 
sacrifice too great, while there is a possibility of 
saving the human soul. 

God’s search is also persistent. The woman 
of the Parable sweeps out every dusty corner; 
she shakes out every article of clothing; she lifts 
boxes that have not been lifted for years; she 
carefully searches drawers where she knows the 
coin cannot be; she reads the face of every one 
who has come near her house fora month; she 
exhausts every possibility of finding her piece of 
money. Possibly she required it to make upa 
sum for a purchase. Certainly God needs us for 
some end He hasin view. This is not our whole 
history, that with immense outlay of Divine re- 
sources we are restored to permanent rectitude. 
There must be much beyond, and for this God 
prepares us now. The experiences of earth, how- 
ever exalted, do not exhaust the eventfulness of 
our eternal life. Therefore God seeks us with 
earnestness as if we were necessary not only to 
His love but to His purposes. Hemakes diligent 
search. He leaves no stone unturned. With act- 
ive, intelligent, unwearied search, He strives to win 
the sinner to purity and love. Christ astonished 
men on earth by the company into which He found 
His way, and by the affection with which He spoke 
to low and worthless people; and so does He 
still, by means less observable but equally efficient, 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 341! 


seek to win mento the recognition of His love and 
of all the good He makes possible. The shepherd 
sought “until he found” his sheep; the woman 
swept diligently “untilshe found” her coin. But 
while God’s search is infinitely more persistent, it 
may be baffled by the cold indifference, the reso- 
lute badness of the sinner. 

3. The third point illustrated by these Parables 
is the exceeding joy consequent on the restoration 
of the sinner. “Joy shall be in heaven over one 
sinner that repenteth more than over ninety and 
nine just persons which need no repentance.” The 
joy is greater, because the effort to bring it about has 
been greater, and because for a time the result has 
been in suspense, so that when the end is attained 
there isasense of clear gain. The joy of success is 
proportioned to the difficulty, the doubtfulness of 
attaining it. All the hazards and sacrifices of the 
search are repaid by the recovery of the lost. The 
value of the unfallen soul may intrinsically be 
greater than the value of the redeemed; but the 
joy is proportioned, not to the value of the article, 
but to the amount of anxiety that has been spent 
upon it. So that Christ virtually says to the 
Pharisees: “You murmur at Me; but ifyou were 
in sympathy with heaven, you would rejoice with 
Me. You need no repentance,—at least you think 
so; and for this very reason I seek to attract those 
who do. Their state isadmittedly precarious, and 
to win them will be clear gain to the kingdom of 


342 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


heaven. The finding is an intenser joy than the 
keeping safe,because the loss has been actually felt 
and is now relieved, the pang of separation has 
been actually endured and is now swallowed upin 
the joy of restoration.” 

To the sinner then, these Parables say, It is 
your unspeakably happy privilege to give God 
joy. There is no joy comparable to the joy of 
successful love; of love, that is to say, not only 
recognized and returned, but which succeeds in 
making the object of it as happy as it desires, and 
does so after many repulses and misunderstandings 
and hazards. This is God’s greatest joy. When 
God succeeds in securing the happiness,—the in- 
ward purity and rectitude, and therefore the hap- 
piness,—of any one who has been estranged from 
Him, there is joy in heaven. What can more 
worthily give joy to intelligent beings than the 
increase of goodness? God’s joy is the unutter- 
able joy of the parent who for many years has been 
anxiously watching his son’s growth, his leanings, 
his temptations, his resolutions, his declensions, 
his alienations of spirit, and at length sees proof 
that the lad is wholly sound at heart, that he has 
chosen the better part and thrown off all vice that 
clung to him ; that he is bent now upon a pure and 
honorable life, and with his own soul hates the 
thought of evil; that he has finally abjured the 
allurements that tempted and bound him formerly, 
and has in himself that deep principle and those 


THE LOST SHEEP AND THE LOST COIN. 343 


wise and generous dispositions which will guide 
him in all circumstances and in all companies. 
This joy you have it in your power to give to 
God. There is a joy which no one but yourself 
can excite in God, a joy over your repentance, over 
your return to good; a joy therefore which none 
but yourself hasthe humble glory of stirring in the 
mind of God. 

In this joy the angels are represented as shar- 
ing. Their experience of the blessedness of life 
with God, gives them sympathy with all who enter 
that life. They know the happiness that lies be- 
fore every one who yields himself to God’s pur- 
pose and to God’s love, and therefore they rejoice. 
And if it be true that the conversion of one soul 
be so reasonable a ground of joy to those who 
are merely spectators, what unspeakable gladness 
ought it to bring to those who themselves experi- 
ence it? Have you ever had such happiness that 
you would deem it reasonable that all heaven 
should rejoice with you init? Yet there is such 
happiness open to you. Uninteresting, solitary, 
monotonous, and unobserved as your life may 
seem, it is, if there be truth in these words of the 
Lord, an object of intensest interest to God and 
angels. With all its evils, its fears, its misery, 
it may be lifted to so true aharmony with the ever- 
living God, that those pure and discerning spirits 
who see it cannot forbear rejoicing over it with 
well-grounded satisfaction. 


344 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


If God with all heaven is thus in sympathy with 
us, defeated in our defeat, triumphing in ouf 
victory ; if the cause of love and moral order is 
one throughout the universe, we have every 
encouragement to play our part well. Itis no 
short and easy passage of arms we are called to; 
we are wearied and often overcome by the constant 
accompaniment of sin, weakness, and folly in all 
we do; but in all this evil and conflict there is 
material for victory and joy. Are you weighted by 
nature with a poor craven spirit, a vain selfish 
heart, sordid or gross passions, a feeble incon- 
stant will, a nature that often causes shame? 
Humbly recognize all this as what you are actually 
called to master; do not waste your energies 
envying those who have a better nature and an 
easier task, but face the conflict that actually 
awaits you and carry into it the assurance that 
every stroke for the right and every defeat of evil 
you accomplish has an echo of the truest kind in 
heaven. Remember the greater joy God has in 
the painful, difficult, penitential return of a lost 
soul than in the easy righteousness of the natu- 
rally pure, 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 
LUKE XV. II-32. 


IN the Parables of the Lost Sheep and Lost 
Piece of Money, our Lord has already shown that 
the very circumstance that men are lost inevi- 
tably attracts towards them the greater solicitude 
on God’s part; that so far from their notoriously 
bad character and gross breach of all law, human 
and Divine, putting them beyond God’s love, this 
really only provokes amore manifest and touching 
exhibition of God’s love. In this Parable He 
repeats this lesson, but adds another figure to the 
dramatis person@, a figure which represents the 
objecting Pharisees and scribes, and in which they 
might see the unreasonableness and hatefulness 
of the spirit which could find fault with the un- 
questioning welcome and festal reception of the 
returning penitent. There is also another dif- 
ference between the Parables. The two former 
bring into great prominence the loss which God sus. 
tains in the lapse and destruction of the sinner, 
the suffering which His love necessarily endures 
in being prevented from achieving the happiness 
of its object. In this Parable of the Prodigal, so 
much is said of the wretchedness to which the 

BE 


346 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


sinner is reduced, that while the central figure it 
still the father, our attention is strongly directed 
towards that which was entirely absent from the 
other Parables, the experience and change of mind 
in the lost sinner himself. It is, however, to be 
borne in mind that this description of the sinner’s 
misery is given still to give point and justification 
to what might otherwise seem the extravagant joy 
of the father. Had the son been absent for a 
year or two ona mercantile mission as his father’s 
agent, and were he now returning successful, this 
exultation would be out of place. The miserable 
plight of the prodigal is detailed to justify the 
recoil of the father’s feeling from long-suppressed 
love, compassionate anxiety, and longing to over- 
flowing, unrestrained rejoicing. 

The few strokes in which the career of the 
prodigal is sketched have approved themselves at 
the bar of universal experience, and have become 
part and parcel of the imagery in which all of us 
clothe our thoughts. It has, too, been kept alive 
in the minds of men by the unhappy circumstance 
that the career here depicted is so often actually 
reproduced in the lives of young men who start 
with every advantage and comfort, and who perish 
miserably in some distant colony, orin a few years 
run through their health, and come home only to 
die in sorrow and shame. 

The beginning is the same in all cases; an in- 
capacity to find the fullest enjoyment in God’s 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 347 


love, God’s presence, and God’s ways. The son 
grows weary of the fafher’s home ; he desires his 
goods, but not his presence ; he wishes to be his 
own master, believing that he is cramped and 
straitened by goodness, and that liberty to do 
evil is the true emancipation. There is nothing 
in sin that affects us witha keener sense of degra- 
dation than the youthful folly that runs through it 
all, the inexperienced and thoughtless fancy that 
unless we sin we have not freedom, and the sense 
that God would be more to us were He less in 
Himself. He is too good for us to be quite at 
home in His presence. His holiness shames us 
and discomforts us. His presence ceases to be 
the most grateful, the most enjoyable, the easiest. 
What answer do you get when you ask yourself, 
Should I be satisfied were God to give me as my 
own what would make me independent of Him? 
Were I sure of life, of power to spend and enjoy 
it as I pleased, with no interference of punishment 
or remonstrance from God, would this satisfy me? 
Or would it be itself a terrible punishment to me 
to be cast forth from God, even though I had 
provision for all my future ? Were communion 
with God denied me, would this really make a dif- 
ference to me, would my life seem a blank? would 
this take the soul out of all my hopes, all my 
plans, all my enjoyments? Should I feel as a 
homeless outcast suddenly ejected into an un- 
desired, bleak, blank world, my heart unable to rest 


348 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


in anything, but turning ever back to the Father 
I had lost ? 

When the heart is thus alienated, God pe not 
desire a constrained bodily service. He does not 
compel us to abide with Him. Ifour real desire 
is for His portion, and not for Himself, He gives 
us our desire. He does not treat us as if we had 
no capacity of choice. He does not save us, 
whether we willor no. But neither does He let 
us go without regret or into oblivion. The father 
by dismissing his son does not help to lose him ; 
but foreseeing that nothing but an experience of 
the world’s emptiness can bring him to appreciate 
the home and love of his father, he sadly sends 
him to this painful school. He sees him away and 
turns into his house, and who can tell the broken- 
hearted anguish with which in secret he pictures 
to himself the probable career of his loved child ? 
What servant on the farm does not well under- 
stand the sudden lack of interest in all the work, 
the absent look as schemes of improvement are 
detailed to him, the many signs that reveal that 
his heart is with his lost son, and that all else is 
matter of indifference to him? But the son, 
for his part, after the first pang, exults in the 
freedom he has gained, wantonly puts the greatest 
distance between his father and himself, does not 
provide for a return home, nor dreams of needing 
further help, but boldly launches on the world suf- 
ficient for himself. Itis thus that in the pride of 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 349 


life, when health is unbroken, and the world un- 
tried, we reckon only on a life of success and grati- 
fication, gather to us all our means and powers of 
enjoyment, and accept guidance solely from our 
own casual impulses or shortsighted longings, 
without a thought of the pain we are inflicting 
on Him whose love persistently follows us, and 
with out a thought of the misery we are court 
ing. 

How soon the scene shifts, and how utterly! 
The gay youth who was foremost in every revel, 
whose bright face and confident bearing seemed 
the very embodiment of the pride of life, whose 
wealth gave him command of every form of 
luxurious living, and to whom no earthly pleas- 
ure was unfamiliar—look at him now, blackened 
with starvation and filth, clothed in the rags that 
others have thrown out, noticed only by those 
who gaze with astonishment at him as one who is 
too sunken tobe helped. But to none does he 
look so miserable as to himself. In his mind 
alone is there visible the full contrast between 
what-he is and what he was; between what he is 
and what he might have been. The love he 
might have enjoyed, the noble uses he might have 
served, the expansion of his life under the wise 
enterprise of his father, the growing influence and 
respect, the share in the real work and perma- 
nent rewards of life that might have been his,— 
all this gone beyond his reach, and in its place 


350 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


cold and filth, hunger and nakedness, neglect 
and desolate bitterness of soul. 

Against how many of us does this picture lift 
up its parable! For he is not the only prodigal 
who in riotous pleasure or vain display brings 
himself to beggary ; but he is the prodigal who 
in any way wastes the powers and means God 
gave him to effect substantial good and results 
that might always be looked on with pleasure. 
It seems a matter of no importance, and gives 
us not a thought that we are living for ourselves ; 
we think that living for God isa height of con- 
secration that some may aspire to, but that it is 
no law of life for all; but we come to find that it 
is just this which makes the difference, and that 
all we have done on any other footing had far 
better have been left undone. We have been 
laboriously carting stones into a moss which 
quietly absorbs all our labor, and shows abso- 
lutely no result. If we have spent our portion, 
our talents, our opportunities, our life, in striving 
to please ourselves,—if we have not made com- 
mon cause and partnership with God, and been 
content to have our individual portion merged in 
His,—then manifestly we have as thoroughly 
alienated ourselves and our portion from God as 
if we had spent it on riotous living. 

Indeed the riotous livers always seem to have 
more to say for themselves than the more re- 
spectable self-pleasers. They say or they feel, 





THE PRODIGAL SON. 351 


There is a great untried sphere, a world that 
promises enjoyment, away in that direction. Let 
us try this promising freedom, let us make ex- 
periment of that life that lies beyond law and re- 
straint; we shall at least know more. Yes, as 
John Ruskin says, “ You now know the habits of 
swine and the taste of husks; do you think your 
father could not have taught you to know better 
habits and pleasanter tastes, if you had stayed in 
his house; and that the knowledge you have lost 
would not have been more, as well as sweeter, 
than that you have gained?” “No one ever 
gets wiser by doing wrong, nor stronger. You 
will get wiser and stronger only by doing right, 
whether forced or not; the prime, the one need 
is to do that, under whatever compulsion, till you 
can do it without compulsion.” 

And this is not a mere critical remark made 
upon us from without, by one who has different 
tastes from ourselves; it is a truth that asserts 
itself in the experience of every prodigal. The 
famine comes, and the husks won’t satisfy. They 
may keep down the gnawing pangs of hunger, 
they may stay the appetite for the hour, but 
they do not nourish. Take any pleasure or pur- 
suit that is ungodly, and you know that this is all 
it does. It passes the time, it interests and en- 
gages you, it stays an appetite; but your nature 
is not fed, the deepest parts of your nature are 
unfilled ; yourself in that which is most yourself, 


352 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


is impoverished. You are not growing in any 
fitness for the future, you are not gaining mastery 
of your spirit, you are not enlarging in your love 
of goodness. Do you wish proof of this? Have 
you never wished that your nature did not re- 
quire anything better than the world provides? 
As this poor prodigal lying by the swine’s trough 
may sometimes have wished that he could fatten 
on that food as they did, so it is not a wholly un- 
known desire among us to wish that we were a 
shade liker the beasts, that every part of our na- 
ture might be satisfied with that which only satis- 
fies the lower parts of it, that it were not wrong 
to enjoy the pleasures of sin, and that God had 
made us for no higher ends than our own weak 
and depraved hearts aspire to. But our natures 
will not remake themselves. They are made for 
God, and nowhere else can we find eventually 
aught but famine. You may as well try to feed 
a horse upon carrion or alionupon straw. “ Man 
liveth by every word that proceedeth out of the 
mouth of God.” We must have assurance of 
God’s presence with us, and of His love. He 
must speak to us words of approbation and en- 
couragement, we must be onterms of the truest 
affection with Him. We live through all our 
being when the words and sentiments that come 
straight and true from the heart of God Himself 
come home to our hearts, when He manifests 
Himself to us,—gives us to understand, as with 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 353 


His own lips, what no other can tell us of His 
love,—conveys to us the inward assurance that 
He is ours, and that we are His for evermore. 

If you have learned that after all enjoyment of 
this world, there is a something more you must 
have if enjoyment is to last; if you are not yet 
wholly citizens of this world, but have still some 
feelings of the alien, some longings, however 
faint, after another kind of home, some indications, 
however slight, that this is not filling and feeding 
you, that this may do for a while, but would be 
misery if forever,—if you feel, in short, your need 
of God,—then look and listen to His Incarnate 
Word. Christ is sent to speak these words of 
everlasting life to you, to win you back to your 
true home and Father, to be the channel through 
which the whole fulness of God’s love is poured 
into your famishing spirits, to refresh and invig- 
orate you with undying hope, to loosen the hands 
that are feely clutching the foul husks, and fill 
them with the bread that cometh from heaven. 

The return of the prodigal was perhaps not 
prompted by the very highest of motives. What 
high motives could you expect in a man who had 
lived for his own pleasure, and was now lying 
starving? But who would be saved if he had to 
show a repentance void of all selfishness? The 
chief reason why men turn to God is in the great 
majority of cases the same as that which prompted 
the prodigal’s return. The prodigal could not 

23 


354 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


make a better of it; we too have tried everything 
else, and been disappointed. We donot try God 
until convinced that nothing else will serve our 
turn. Health gives way, or the spirit is broken, 
or hope baffled, or one way or other we find the 
world is not going to be the paradise we expected. 
The world sees and says this; it sneers at conver- 
sion as if it were unreal, because it is so often the 
result of disappointment with the world. God 
sees and says it too; but receives the returning 
sinner, and in the reception a better mind is pro- 
duced in him, and his selfishness broken. 
Besides, there was even in this compulsory re- 
turn that belief in the father’s love which con- 
dones all offenses. There was the instinctive 
undying feeling that a parent is still a parent, 
and will receive when others cast us out. You 
have, I dare say, read the experience of the great 
French philosopher Diderot. “The first few 
years of my life in Paris had been rather irregular, 
my behavior was enough to irritate my father, 
without there being any need to make it worse 
by exaggeration. Still calumny was not wanting. 
People told him—well, what did they not tell him ? 
An opportunity for going to see him presented 
itself. I did not give it two thoughts. I set out 
full of confidence in his goodness. I thought 
that he would see me, that I should throw my- 
self into his arms, that both of us should shed 
tears, and that all would be forgotten. I thought 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 355 


rightly.” So thought the prodigal. And what- 
ever his motives were, his action was right. He 
put himself again within reach of his father’s love, 
and that love received him without question, 
exulting in the ample opportunity of uttering 
itself. It-had opportunity now of helping its 
pitiable object, of doing a// forthe still loved son. 
This was no time for inquiry as to why he had 
come. Here he was, and in need. That is 
enough for true love. 

Nothing can surpass the pathos of the meeting 
of father and son. While the prodigal was “ yet 
a great way off,” his father saw him, and had 
compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and 
kissed him. It is as if he had been watching for 
him night and day ; as when a mother has lost 
a son, she will start at every ring or footstep, 
thinking it may perhaps be he. Every feature, 
every peculiarity of gait, every line of his figure 
was imprinted on the father’s heart, so that long 
before another eye could recognize him, the 
father’s heart had welcomed the son. He saw 
him, and had compassion, simultaneously ; there 
was no hesitation to be fought against, no pon- 
dering whether he should not harden himself 
against this heartless profligate; but as soon as 
his eyes rested on him, all his sorrow passed away, 
the sun of his life shone out again. The rags 
that would have disguised him from any other 
eye could not hide him from the father; the rags 


356 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


and misery that would have tempted others to 
spurn him as a hopeless, abandoned creature, 
drew forth the father’s love. He van to meet 
him, everything else neglected, his own dignity 
out of the question; he cares not to require a 
seemly submission on his son’s part that the ser- 
vants may understand he is justified in receiving 
him. There is no attempt to impress upon the 
son a sense of his demerit, nothing done to make 
sure that he has a sufficient sense of guilt to 
justify pardon. The reason of the father’s receiv- 
ing him is not that; is not that the son hasa 
sufficient sense of anything, but only that the 
father loves him, and the son is now within reach 
of the father, will suffer him now to show his love. 
And therefore the father runs as if it were all on 
his side the blessing were, as if it were he who 
was to win favors from his son; he runs and falls 
on his neck, overcome with joy, his heart bound- 
ing with happiness, his soul satisfied, his life com- 
plete. No words can express the first welcome, 
the father cannot find language to utter the ful- 
ness of his heart; but in that eager embrace, in 
that kiss of love and peace, the prodigal knows 
himself a son still, as surely and more vehemently 
loved by his father than if he had never sinned. 
This is a picture of the reception the returning 
sinner receives. You may have wasted the best 
years of your life in selfish gratification, without 
a thought of serving God; you may have indulged 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 357 


in sins that fill you with self-loathing ; you may 
have sunk to a state of heart that you would be 
ashamed to lay bare to the most generous and 
charitable of men; you may painfully feel that 
you have nothing to offer to God but the worth- 
less dregs of a wasted life; you may be conscious 
that even your heart is not given to God as it 
ought, and that through the whole of your re- 
pentance your original selfishness is running ; but 
only put yourself into God’s hands as you are, 
and as this father was not hindered by the foul 
and sour rags of his son who came to him from 
among the swine, but fell on his neck, overcome 
by joy, so will you find in God no revulsion, but 
an immediate and hearty welcome that will cause 
you to rejoice in His love. You need not fear 
that you are to be put through some preparatory 
discipline, lodged in some sad and dreary moral 
quarantine till some of the loathsomeness and de- 
filement of sin be worn off you. You will not be 
charged with your sins and reminded of your 
folly. All that will be left to yourself, and what 
God does is to meet you with the tenderest love, 
and to do everything to give you assurance of it, 
and wipe out the past. The father does every. 
thing to assure the son of his immediate rein- 
statement as his son,—everything to relieve him 
from fear, from want, from pain, from sadness; 
and whatever God must give us, if we are to be 
delivered from the same sensations, we are war- 


358 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ranted in expecting. The father cannot do 
enough for the son; would like him at this hour 
of return to tell him of every least way in which 
help could be given him. It is this that God 
longs for, that we give Him the opportunity of 
blessing us, that we learn to trust in His love, 
and knowing that all else has failed us, believe 
that it will prove sufficient. And because it is 
love we have to do with, no one need fear that 
having been received he will yet make no progress 
in al] that constitutes man’s real growth and hap- 
piness; nor need any one suppose that they who 
are received are suffered to remain just what they 
were. They have been received because they are 
loved, and the love of God is not inactive nor in- 
effective, but does most certainly continue to 
watch over its objects, and to confer the highest 
gifts upon them. Whatever more complete sev- 
erance from old habits and desires is needed, 
whatever persistence in well-doing, whatever 
deepening repentance, whatever growth in know- 
ing and loving the Father is requisite,—all this 
will most certainly be given. 

And now in contrast to this joy of God in the 
returning sinner, our Lord sets the cold-hearted 
jealousy of the Pharisaically righteous man. He 
not only justifies Hisown conduct by showing 
how the father acts, but condemns the objections 
of the Pharisees by holding up to them in this 
elder brother a mirror in which they may see 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 359 


their own hateful likeness. The Pharisees had 
murmured against our Lord, “This man re- 
ceiveth sinners;” He shows them an elder 
brother saying of his father, “ This man receiveth 
a sinner,” and leaves them to draw their own con- 
clusion. Every touch in the description brings 
out some ungenial, servile, grudging, and envious 
feature of his character. He was “‘in the fields” 
when his brother came ; too busy with his indus- 
trious and useful labors to share in his father’s 
earnest watching for the prodigal’s return; not 
perceiving from his mercenary point of view that 
he might have pleased his father immeasurably 
more by going after and recovering his lost 
brother than by an ostentatious and punctilious 
performance of his own private duties; not even 
having such insight into his father’s heart as 
would have enabled him to guess the one occur- 
rence that could have given his father such glad- 
ness; not even observing that by contrasting his 
own life of toil with his brother’s riotous living, 
he betrays his own secret liking for that, and 
proves that his service had been the heavy, un- 
acceptable task of one who is not in sympathy 
with either the object of the work or him who set 
him to it. Thus maya man, after years of res- 
pectable living, disclose a heart alien from God, 
and out of sympathy with Him; thus may he dis- 
close that his whole past life has been unloving 
and self-seeking. 


360 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


But as the father was patient and loving with 
the younger brother, so is he with the elder. He 
answers his bitter words and audacious reproaches 
in a tone of surprised and pained yet gentle and 
encouraging remonstrance: “Son, thou art ever 
with me, and all that I have is thine.” Why 
grudge thy brother this hour of gladness, when 
the calm and even joy of abundant life has all 
along been thine? I have never given theea kid, 
because all I have is thine. We have mistaken 
one another. I thought that to be with me from 
day to day, sharing my thoughts, my plans, my 
joy, my prosperity, would be enough for you. 
As I am satisfied in my work, in increasing good, 
and in thy love, I judged that you also were find- 
ing it your joy to be with me, my partner in all 
things. But now I see you have been serving as 
a slave, doing your work not for its sake, not for 
mine, but for reward. 

There is sufficient Pharisaism in each of us to 
| justify the application of this toourselves. They 
’ who have long served God with care and diligence 
and yet find their life a hard struggle, with few 
bright passages, many disappointments, and never 
joy such as the penitent at once enters into, nat- 
urally feel some soreness that one step should 
bring a life-long sinner abreast of them. You 
may have been striving all your days to be use- 
ful, and making great sacrifices to further what 
you believe to be the cause of God, and yet you 


THE PRODIGAL SON. 361 


cannot point to any success; but suddenly a man 
converted yesterday takes your place, and all 
things seem to shape themselves to his hand, and 
the field that was a heart-break to you is fertile 
to him. You have denied yourself every pleasure 
that you might know the happiness of communion 
with God, and you have not known it, but you 
see a banquet spread in God’s presence for him 
who has till this hour been delighting in sin. 
You have had neither the riotous living nor the 
fatted calf. You have gone among the aban- 
doned and neglected, and striven to enlighten and 
lift them ; you have done violence to your own 
feelings that you might be helpful to others; 
and, so far as you can see, nothing has come of it. 
But another man who has lived irregularly, who 
has not prepared himself for the work, who is 
untaught, imprudent, unsatisfactory, has the im- 
mediate joy of winning souls to God. Have you 
not been tempted to say, “ Verily I have cleansed 
my heart in vain, and washed my hands in inno- 
cency”? All this may be needful to convince 
you that it is not service that wins God’s love; 
that His love is with you: now, and that your ac- 
ceptance of it will make all that has seemed to 
you grievous to be light andhappy. Take refuge 
from all failure and disappointment in the words, 
“Son, I am ever with thee, and all that I have is 
thine.” Learn to find your joy in Him, and you 
will be unable to think of any reward. 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 


LUKE xvi. I-13. 


THE occasion, and therefore the intention, of 
the last Parables we considered—those of the pre- 
ceding chapter—were obvious. They formed our 
Lord’s defense of His solicitude for great sin- 
ners. The occasion and intention of the Para- 
bles inthis chapter are not so obvious. But it 
would appear that the same crowd was yet 
around Him. There were Pharisees still hanging 
about, as the fourteenth verse shows. But what 
our Lord had now to say was not addressed direct- 
ly to them, as the three preceding Parables had 
been, but “to His disciples” ; and very probably 
it was for the sake of the publicans and rich men 
among these disciples that His teaching took the 
peculiar cast it now did. These publicans and 
sinners had suddenly been made aware of the 
fact that the fraud, extortion, violence, and luxuri- 
ous living which had made them outcasts from 
the purest Jewish society had rather attracted 
towards them an exceptional solicitude on God’s 
part. The place they still held in God’s love had 
been vividly set before them. The value He set 


upon them, the eagerness of His desire to recover 
362 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 363 


tnem, the glad welcome and full forgiveness with 
which they were met, had been brought home to 
their hearts with irresistible force. Being but 
men, and men whose character had been sapped 
by constant familiarity with crime, and whose 
views of all transactions were determined by their 
own selfish habits, it was natural that they should 
be tempted to think less severely of their sin 
than was right. It is true that nothing so cleanses 
the heart as the knowledge of God’s love. To 
be overcome by God’s love is the only effectual 
cleansing and bar against sin. But asyet the holi- 
ness of God’s love had not been signalized in the 
cross, and there was a danger, as there is even 
now a danger, of the penitent luxuriating in the 
love of God, while oblivious that this love is 
consumingly holy. It is at last the holiness of 
God’s love that gives it its power; at last we 
come to see that His love and His holiness are 
one and the same thing; but at first we are 
tempted to forget that the love of God burns to 
make us holy as Himself. 

Apparently, therefore, though not certainly, 
these Parables were spoken that the publicans 
might distinctly understand how their ill-gotten 
gains were to be used. They were to be taught 
that, though their past is forgiven, they have a 
duty to do with the gains they have made. And 
they are addressed as men thoroughly versed in all 
the ways of monied men, wide awake to appre. 


Se eT 


364 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ciate hard work, vigilance, enterprise, and prompti- 
tude. And the aim of this first Parable is to im- 
press on them the necessity of carrying over with 
them into the kingdom of God the qualities which 
had made them successful in the kingdom of 
mammon. They are to use the world’s opportuni- 
ties, and especially what we significantly call 
“means,” with the same vigor and sagacity, but 
for higher ends; they are so to use their op- 
portunities that, when they terminate, they shall 
have served to provide a competence for eternity. 

The figure or character through whom this les- 
son is conveyed is one with which they were 
perfectly familiar and had daily transactions. In- 
deed, it is not unlikely that when the unjust 
steward was described, significant glances would 
be exchanged by some of the crowd who had 
good reason to know how close to reality the des- 
criptionlay. He was a steward; not a farm stew- 
ard, ora house steward, but, in modern language, 
an agent, factor, or “man of business.” He was 
apparently much employed in the receipt of rents, 
the tenants paying to the landlord not a regular 
sum of money, but a proportion of the harvest ; and 
apparently, also, it depended onthe tenant himself 
to say truthfully, subject no doubt to the inspection 
of the steward, what the crop of each year yielded, 
and how much was due to the landlord as his pro- 
portion. Each tenant gave in, it seems, a bill to 
the steward stating the amount as his debt to the 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 365 


landlord, as his rent due; so that it lay between 
the tenant and the steward to be true or to impose 
upon the landlord. The landlord would make it 
the steward’s interest to be watchful and faithful, 
but there might yet be some collusion between 
the steward and the tenants. They might agree 
to state the crop as less than it had been, and 
therefore the landlord’s proportion as less. And 
in this case, as the Parable also shows, the land- 
lord had no redress. He had, in the first place, 
no direct means of informing himself of the real 
amount of the harvest in the olive yards or corn 
lands; and even if, as in the case before us, some 
interested party informed him of the fraud that 
was being practised upon him, he had no redress ; 
for it seems to have been established by law that 
what the steward did the landlord did. There 
was no legal redress against a steward’s infidelity, 
no legal means of recovering from the tenants 
what had been kept back by the steward’s sanction. 

When this steward of the Parable was called 
to give an account of his stewardship, he at once 
saw that it was at least quite in vain to think of 
talking his employer over, so that he might still 
be retained in his service. Without a thought of 
idle lamentation he at once faces the question, 
what was to be done when discharged. A life of 
luxury had unfitted him for manual labor; he 
had spoiled his chance of getting any other such 
situation as he now held; and he who had been 


306 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


regarded with greater dread than his master 
could not bring his mind to begging his bread. 
He sees at once the difficulty of his position, and, 
displaying here a business-like promptitude, sets 
himself to devise some scheme for extricating 
himself. Thestewardship would be his no longer ; 
it was already slipping through his fingers, but 
out of this fragment of stewardship that remained 
to him he resolved to make for himself a com- 
petent provision. While his master was laying 
to his charge one defalcation after another, his 
quick apprehension was taking in every element 
in his position; and undismayed by the ruin that 
stared him in the face, he held his sagacity so 
completely at command that he lighted on a solu- 
tion of his difficulty. As his employer came to 
the last item in his indictment, and was pronounc- 
ing his dismissal, the subtle and active and self- | 
possessed steward was saying in himself, “ I have 
it’’; ‘I see what to do.” And he was confident 
that he had resolved aright; there is no sus- 
picous flurry in his dealing with his lord’s debtors, 
but only the speed which he knew he must use 
if his scheme was to be of any avail. One after 
another of the debtors of his lord was delighted 
by having a large part of his debt remitted to , 
him. They cannot but feel most grateful for 
something like the gift of half a year’s income; 
and the steward at once sees that he has secured 
the gratitude and goodwill of some well-to-do 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 367 


men, who in turn will stand by him. The plan 
was, of course, thoroughly unprincipled and dis- 
honest. It was simply stealing, taking out of his 
master’s pocket, and banking the stolen money 
in the houses of these new friends. Yet the plan 
was admirably ingenious. There could not in- 
deed have been any other extrication from his 
difficulty so entirely devoid of evil consequences 
to himself, so completely furnishing him with all 
that he aimed at. Had he perpetrated a direct 
theft, the law could have pursued him; but he 
actedstill as steward, so that what he did must hold 
as law, and hislord hadno redress. So felicitous 
was the device, that the landlord, though himself 
the loser by it, cannot withhold his admiration of 
this parting proof his steward had given him of 
his ready-wittedness. He had humor enough to 
enjoy the man’s cleverness, candor enough to 
praise his prudence. “ His lord commended the 
unjust steward, because he had done wisely.” 

It is perhaps scarcely necessary to observe 
that it is merely the wisdom, the practical sagac- 
ity, the savoir faire of the steward that is com- 
mended to our attention and imitation. A bad 
’ thing may be well done. The most admirable 
qualities—industry, perseverance, bravery, quick- 
ness—miay serve to accomplish a wicked as well 
as a righteous purpose. Few can withhold a 
tribute of applause from the forger who success- 
fully copies a very difficult bank-note, or elabor- 


368 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


ates a professedly medieval document so as to 
deceive even the experts. No one commends 
the morality of David when he played the mad- 
man at Gath, and scrabbled on the gate, but who 
has not smiled at his skill in meeting the occa- 
sion, in overreaching all his enemies, and making 
them serve him by the simple device of hiding 
the brightest intellect of the age under the vacant, 
silly stare of the idiot ? 

The wisdom of the unjust steward, which we are 
invited to admire, appeared mainly in his business- 
like apprehension of the actual situation in which 
he was placed, and his sagacity and promptitude 
in making the most of it. He looked the facts in 
the face. Hedid not buoy himself up with delu- 
sive hopes. He did not waste his brief oppor- 
tunity in idle expectations. He did not fool 
himself by thinking, “I'll never need any other 
home than the one I now have,” but recognizing 
that he would soon be turned out of his present 
home and employment, and knowing that nothing 
is more desirable to a man out of a situation than 
a friend’s house where he can be quite at home, 
he takes steps to provide this for himself. He 
manfully faced the inevitable, and this was his 
salvation. The ability to do so is a great part of 
what is known as a strong character. It isa great 
part of that wisdom of the children of this world, 
which surpasses the wisdom of the children of 
light. It is this that makes the successful general, 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 369 


the trusted statesman, the skilful man of business. 
To be able to distinguish between what we would 
wish to be the case, and what actually is the case ; 
to be able to brush aside all that blinds, and look 
steadily at realities—this is the beginning of prac- 
tical wisdom. The wise man may, for example, 
ardently desire that his son should enter a certain 
profession, but he will not allow this desire to 
blind him to the qualities which unfit the lad for 
it; he will not fight against fate. 

By holding up for our imitation this style of 
man, our Lord suggests to us to inquire whether 
we are thus apprehending the situation. The 
children of this world have a clear idea of what 
they aim at, and they steadily and consistently 
pursue their aims. Their aim may be wholly “ of 
this world ;” but they are not distracted by desir- 
ing one thing, while they profess to be desiring 
another. They make everything subserve their 
actual purpose, and do not disguise the facts. 
Are we as clear-sighted and as single-eyed? Here 
is one large fact, for example, regarding our con- 
dition in this world. We are stewards who must 
shortly give account of our stewardship. Our 
opportunities are rapidly narrowing down. We 
should have had a very short and strong term to 
apply to this steward of the Parable, if he had 
made light of the message his lord sent him,—if 
he had said to himself, “I have been so long my 


own master, not interfered with, allowed to do as 
24 


370 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


I like, and live comfortably, that I don’t believe I 
am a steward. I am called a steward, but that is 
merely a title. If my lord does come,—though I 
do not believe he will,—it will be all right. He 
has always allowed me to do as I please, and I do 
not believein this calling to account.” Our friend 
of the Parable was no such fool. He knew how 
the case actually stood; he had a very lenient 
master, but he himself was but a steward. 

Let us also then be clear in our minds whether 
we are stewards or masters; whether we are to 
stay here for ever, or must shortly go hence and 
find another home; whether we are ourselves 
supreme, or whether we can be called to account. 
Let us face the facts of our existence here, and 
understand the terms on which we live in this 
world. If we are stewards, set here to act justly, 
and faithfully to use for higher interest than our 
own whatever is in our power, then let us recog- 
nize that it is quite in vain for us to think of 
working any other principle. You might as well 
build a house on the understanding that never 
more will there be either wind or rain. Nature 
pays no respect to your understandings, but acts 
out her own laws without warning and without 
apology. You do not alter facts by hiding your 
eyes like the ostrich. You are called upon to as- 
sert your manhood by ascertaining what are the 
facts and laws of human life, and by frankly ac- 
cepting them, knowing that they not only are 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 371 


inexorable, but are also the best for you. If we 
do not ascertain the very terms on which we are 
living, and using what we use, the judgment we 
must pronounce upon ourselves is certainly that 
we are dishonest, and fools into the bargain. 

But our Lord makes a special application of 
the example of the steward: “ Make to yourselves 
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that, 
when it fails, they may receive you into everlasting 
habitations.” The steward made use of his de- 
parting power over his master’s goods with such 
skill and effect, that when this power was taken 
from him he found himself welcomed into com- 
fortable houses. You, says our Lord, ought to 
make such use of your opportunities, and especially 
of your share of the unrighteous mammon, that, 
when it fails you, and you cease to have any power 
over it, you may find yourselves welcomed into 
everlasting habitations. Doubtless this is a Par- 
able specially for rich men, specially for those 
whose opportunities are considerable, who may be 
called stewards as having manifestly a responsibil- 
ity to God on the one hand, and to men of inferior 
station on the other. The Parable is full of en- 
couragement to such. It reminds them that the 
opportunity given them by being rich and in- 
fluential is no slight one, that the power of wealth 
does not terminate with this world, that they need 
not greedily and fearfully try to get the utmost 
selfish enjoyment out of their money while they 


372 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


have it, because it must soon be beyond their 
power ; but, on thecontrary, that they may so use 
it as tosecureeternalcomfort. They can so invest 
it that the interest shall be paid them as regularly 
in the world to comeas here. They may, in short, 
be eternally the better for being rich men in this 
world. The Jove of money is the root of all evil, 
but the possession of it is an opportunity of much 
good. 

It need scarcely be said that, if money is to 
serve this eternal purpose, it must be invested 
with some better feelings than the mere selfish 
foresight of the steward. And here lies the 
difficulty ; a man may have love enough to give 
away a little, but he who has great wealth needs 
great love. It is like every other great oppor- 
tunity, it needs some greatness in the man to 
use it greatly. At the same time it may be 
questioned whether in our day there is not just 
rather too much said against doing good for the 
sake of reward. The selfishness which buys an 
eternal inheritance at the price of great earthly 
advantages is not so very common a failing that 
much need be said against it. And, to say the 
least, the selfishness that can sacrifice money and 
earthly comforts for the sake of future and 
heavenly happiness is a nobler thing and a much 
better thing for the community than the selfish- 
ness which spends on display and pleasure with- 
out a thought of the future, or hoards with a 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 373 


view to satisfy the vulgar ambition of being rich, 
or without any view at all. 

But although this Parable was spoken to rich 
men, and for their special good, we have all more 
or less of the mammon of unrighteousness. Mam- 
mon is just the Syriac word for money, and it is 
called “unrighteous ”’ or “‘ unjust,” because those 
to whom our Lord was speaking had made their 
money by injustice. It was as little their own 
as the unjust steward’s was. The steward was 
unjust because he had not regarded himself as a 
steward ; and in so far as we have forgotten this 
fundamendal circumstance, we also are unjust. 
We may not have consciously wronged any man 
or defrauded any ; but if we have omitted to 
consider what was due to God and man, the 
likelihood is we have more money than we have 
a right to. The name, indeed, “ unrighteous 
mammon,” is sometimes sweepingly applied to 
all wealth and material advantages, because there 
isafeeling that the whole system of trade, com- 
merce, and social life is inextricably permeated 
with fraudulent practises and iniquitous customs 
—so permeated that no man can be altogether 
free, or is at all likely to be altogether free, from 
all guilt inthis matter. Take any coin out of your 
pocket and make it tell its history, the hands it 
has been in, the things it has paid for, the trans- 
actions it has assisted, and you would be inclined 
to fling it away as contaminated and filthy. But 


374 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


that coin is a mere emblem of all that comes to 
you through the ordinary channels of trade, and 
suggests to you the pollution of the whole social 
condition. The clothes you wear, the food you 
eat, the house you live in, the money you are 
asked to invest, have all a history which will not 
bear scrutiny. Oppression, greed, and fraud serve 
you every day. Whether you will or not you are 
made partakers of other men’s sins. You may 
be thankful if your hands are not soiled by any 
stain that you have wittingly incurred; but even 
so, you must ask, what compensation can I make 
for the unrighteousness which cleaves to mam- 
mon ? how am I to use it now, seeing I have it? 

Our Lord says, ““You are to make friends with 
it who may receive you into everlasting habita- 
tions.” You are so to use your opportunities 
that when your present stewardship is over you 
may not be turned out in the cold and to beg- 
gary, but may have secured friends who will give 
you a welcome to the eternal world. It is the 
same view of the connection of this world and 
the next which our Lord gives in His picture of 
the last judgment, when He says, “ Inasmuch as 
ye have done it to the least of these, ye have 
done it unto Me.” Those whom we have done 
most good to are, as a rule, those whom we have 
most loved; and what better welcome to a new 
world, what more grateful guidance in its ways 
could we desire than that of those whom here 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 375 


on earth we have loved most dearly? Can you 
promise yourselves any better reward than to 
meet the loving recognition and welcome of those 
who have experienced your kindness: to be re- 
ceived by those to whom you have willingly 
sacrificed money, time, opportunities of serving 
yourself? The parents whose closing years you 
watched and sheltered at the sacrifice of the op- 
portunities of your own youth, the children for 
whom you have toiled, the friend or relative 
whose long sickness you brightened and retarded 
by unwearied affection, the acquaintance you kept 
from poverty by timely intervention, the lad whose 
whole life you lifted to a higher level by giving 
him the first step—all those whom you have so 
loved here that your service of them has been 
ungrudging and unthought of—these are they 
who will receive you into everlasting habitations. 

But if any one staggers at such a reading of the 
Parable, there is no necessity that the “ friends ” 
be considered as persons. The word “ friends” 
is used only for the sake of keeping up the figure 
introduced by the Parable, and may be legiti- 
mately applied to anything on which you spend 
yourself, and which you should like to renew ac- 
quaintance with in eternity. It is possible, this 
Parable reminds us, so to spend the time of our 
stewardship here that we shall hereafter live upon 
the happy results of what we have here done. 
The happy idea of the steward was to spend what 


376 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


was left in his hands, not on himself, but on those 
with whom he would have to do after he was 
ousted from office. It was this which showed his 
business capacity. An ordinary rogue would 
merely have exacted more from his master’s debt- 
ors and decamped with the whole. But far 
deeper was the plan of this astute individual; he 
would not eat his seed-corn in this rough style. 
The little he could make out of the few remain- 
ing transactions he could do for his master, he 
handed over to others, knowing that their friend- 
ship and good-will would return him a hundred- 
fold. And you may do the same. Your life you 
may either spend or invest. You may use it 
either as seed or you may devour it. You may 
so live that death will close all and shut you out 
into outer darkness, or you may so live that 
death shall usher you into an everlasting home, 
peopled with familiar faces that recognize and 
reassure you, and show you that in substance 
eternity is not so very different from time, and 
lead you to and assign to you your exact position 
in the eternal world and your real place among men. 

These brilliant and memorable apophthegms 
which form akind of appendix to the Parable 
can be only briefly alluded to. The Parable is 
forgotten in the momentous reality it has served 
to set before our minds; and the great law is 
enounced, “ He that is faithful in that which is 
least is faithful also in much: and he that is un- 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 377, 


just in the least is unjust alsoin much.” Here 
are two great truths suggested to us: Ist, That 
we are here in this world merely on trial, and 
serving our apprenticeship; and 2d, That it is 
our fidelity that is tried, not so much whether 
we have done great or little things, but whether 
we have shown the spirit which above all else a 
steward should show—fidelity to the interests 
entrusted to him. The two verses following, in 
which this is applied, may best be illustrated by 
familiar figures. ‘If,’ says our Lord, “ye have 
not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, 
who will commit to your trust that which is real ?” 
He considers us all in this world as children busy 
with mere playthings and toys, though so pro- 
foundly in earnest. But looking at children so 
engaged you can perfectly see the character of 
each. Although the actual things they are doing 
are of no moment or reality, although, with a 
frankness and penetration not given to their 
elders, they know they are but playing, yet each 
is exhibiting the very qualities which will after- 
wards make or mar him, the selfish greed and 
fraud of one child being as patent as the guile- 
less open-handedness of the other. To the watch- 
ful parent these games that are forgotten in the 
night’s sleep, these buildings which as soon as 
complete are swept away to make room for 
others, are as thorough a revelation of the char- 
acter of the child as affairs of state and compli- 


378 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


cated transactions are ot the grown man. And 
if the parent sees a grasping selfishness in his 
child, or a domineering inconsiderateness of every 
one but himself, as he plays at buying and selling, 
building and visiting, he knows that these same 
qualities will come out in the real work of life, 
and will unfit their possessor for the best work, 
and prevent him from honorable and generous 
conduct, and all the highest functions and duties 
of life. So our Lord, observant of the disposi- 
tions we are showing as we deal with the shadowy 
objects and passing events of this seeming sub- 
stantial world, marks us off as fit or unfit to be 
entrusted with what is real and abiding. If this 
man shows such greed for the gold he knows he 
must in a few years leave, will he not show a 
keener, intenser selfishness in regard to what is 
abiding? If he can trample on other people’s 
rights for the sake of a pound or two, how can he 
be trusted to deal with what is infinitely more 
valuable? If here in a world where mistakes are 
not final, and which is destined to be burned up 
with all the traces of evil that are in it,—ifina 
world which, after all, is a mere card-house, or in 
which we are apprentices learning the use of our 
tools, and busy with work which, if we spoil, we 
do no irreparable harm,—if here we display in- 
corrigible negligence and incapacity to keep a 
high aim and a good model before us, who would 
be so foolish as to let us loose among eternal 


THE UNJUST STEWARD. 379 


matters, things of abiding importance, and in 
which mistake and carelessness and infidelity are 
irreparable ? 

“ And if ye have not been faithful in that which 
is another man’s, who shall give you that which 
is your own?” A merchant sees among his 
clerks one whose look and bearing are prepossess- 
ing, and he thinks that by and by this lad might 
possibly make a good partner; he watches him, 
but he finds him gradually degenerating into slip- 
shod ways of doing his work, coming down late 
in the mornings, and showing no zeal for the 
growth of the business, and so the thought grows 
in his mind, “If he is not faithful in that which 
is another man’s, how can I give him the business 
as hisown?” I can’t hand over my business to 
one who will squander what I have spent my life 
in accumulating; to one who has not sufficient 
liking for work to give himself heartily to it, or 
sufficient sense of honor to do it heartily whether 
he likes it orno. Much asI should like to lift 
him out of a subordinate situation, I cannot do 
so. Thus are determined the commercial and 
social prospects of many an unconscious youth, 
and thus are determined the eternal prospects of 
many a heedless servant of God, who little thinks 
that the Master’s eye is upon him, and that by 
hasting to be rich he is making himself eternally . 
poor, and by slackness in God’s service is ruining 
his own future. 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 


LUKE XVi. I9-3I. 


THE Parable of the Unjust Steward was spoken 
for the purpose of encouraging rich men to 
make a right use of their wealth, as well as for 
the sake of reminding all Christians that the 
qualities which give success in the world and 
constitute practical wisdom are very much re- 
quired in the kingdon of God. But the Phari- 
sees, who were rich, and who under a show of 
godliness and piety kept a very firm hold on 
their money, laughed at the novel investment 
which our Lord proposed. 

In our day the views of Christ regarding the 
distribution of wealth are seriously discussed by 
political economists, and no one ventures to de- 
ride His suggestion. There are still, however, 
double-dyed Pharisees, who with decorous so- 
lemnity and without a shadow of a smile listen 
to our Lord’s recommendations, but listen also 
without the slightest intention of allowing them 
any practical force, without one thought of giv- 
ing them effect in their own life. The Pharisee 
who smiled incredulously in our Lord’s face, and 


expressed pity for His ignorance of the world, 
380 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 381 


was no match for our modern Pharisee, who can 
persuade himself he gives our Lord a reverent 
hearing though he does not dream of obeying 
Him. 

The satirical and mocking observations which 
began to fly round the crowd when the former 
Parable was closed, induced our Lord to expose 
still more plainly the folly of the Pharisees and 
rich men. They lived in the comfortable creed 
that wealth was a manifest sign, if not the man- 
ifest sign, of God’s favor, while disease and 
poverty were the results of sin either in the 
sufferer or in his parents, a creed which had just 
truth enough in it to give it life and make it 
pernicious. They believed that the man who 
was wealthy here would be wealthy in the world 
to come, and that God could not but esteem 
that which commanded the admiration of the 
well-washed and decorous Pharisee. They had, 
to their own perfect satisfaction, reconciled the 
love of God and the love of money. They 
laughed at our Lord, therefore, when He told 
them that God and mammon were irreconcile- 
able, and that to be rich and honored in this 
world was no sign whatever of riches and honor 
in the world to come. Our Lord, therefore, 
argues no further with them, but draws aside 
for a moment the curtain that hides the world 
of spirits and discloses to their view the after 
history of two men, one of whom had been opu- 


A 


382 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


lent and powerful, the other nothing. He shows 
them what becomes of many highly respectable 
citizens, and what is frequently the result of the 
kind of life they chiefly admired. He takes 
them into the unseen world and gives them to 
understand that— 


“ Many there be who fill the highest place, 
Kings upon earth, who here like swine shall bide, 
Leaving but scorn and horror in their trace.” 


The first figure our Lord sets before us in the 
Parable is intended as a mirror to the Pharisees. 
He is not intended to be depicted as a monstrous 
specimen of humanity or luxurious living. We 
do not read that his wealth had been unright- 
eously acquired. No doubtful speculations, no 
far too clever financing, no transactions generally 
condemned, are charged against him. He was 
simply a rich man, who had made his money in the 
usual way. Neither was he a miser who could 
not bear to spend what he had made; on the 
contrary, he liked to see his friends enjoying 
themselves at his expense. Had he been notori- 
ously selfish and uncharitable, his gate would never 
have been chosen as the asylum of the beggar. 
Indeed, this circumstance, that Lazarus was day 
after day laid there, points rather to a character 
for such Pharisaic almsgiving as would maintain 
his reputation as an observer of the law; for 
those who were careful enough to carry the 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 383 


beggar out in the morning would certainly set 
him where he would be pretty sure of being fed. 
The rich man did not refuse to have so loath- 
some an object at his gate, did not refuse to 
have his pleasure somewhat spoilt by the sicken- 
ing sight, did not order his servants to drive the 
disgusting creature off his doorstep. Neither is 
it said that the man was a sensualist, curious in 
sauces and wines, knowing how everything should 
be cooked and in what season and with what 
relish it should be eaten. Not at all: he had 
money and liked to live pleasantly and brightly. 
He wore good clothes; not tissue of silver like 
Herod, nor anything that made him stared at in 
the streets, but merely, like fifty other rich men 
in his town, good linen next his skin and seemly 
purple over it. It is, in short, to his condition 
and not to his character our attention is in the 
first place directed. His character is shown by 
and by; but if we would receive the Parable in 
its full force, we must not anticipate its conclusion, 
but suffer ourselves to be led to it step by step. 
And this first step is to set before us a man sur- 
rounded by all the comforts of life and enjoying 
them to the full. 

In striking contrast to this affluent, easy, bril- 
liant life is set the other extreme of the human con- 
dition. And here, too, nothing as yet is said of 
the character of Lazarus; it is only intended to 
paint vividly external circumstances as squalid, 


384 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


disgusting, and pitiable, as those of the rich 
Pharisee were enviable and glittering. While the 
gaily appareled guests throng into the mansion, 
while the sounds of mirth and dancing attract the 
passers-by, and the brilliant lights shed a radiance 
over all within, Lazarus lies through the weary 
hours in the outer darkness under the sweeping, 
chilling rain, waiting for the scraps that the hun- 
griest slave casts out. Within, the Pharisee is re- 
ceiving the flatteries of a hundred of his clients, and 
is wrapped round with all that nurses self-compla- 
cency ; at his gate liesa helpless heap, a distorted 
wreck of a man that the dogs mistake for a carcass 
thrown out to them, and that men hurry past 
with ashudder. It is a contrast such asour own 
streets continually present, and if anything you 
have yourselves seen of the extremes of comfort 
and discomfort can add another touch to this 
picture, you are welcome to see remembered real- 
ity shining through the Parable. 

There are some pictures so constructed that 
whenthe spectator isthoroughly impressed with 
the scene before him, a spring is touched, the picture 
turns on a pivot and exposes on its reverse side 
that which completes the intended impression. 
This picture is constructed on similar principles. 
The festive Pharisee and the diseased beggar fill- 
ing the eye, the picture is in a moment reversed, 
and the Pharisee is seen dropped out of all com- 
fort and affluence, craving a drop of water as a 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 385 


boon he has no means of procuring, while Lazarus 
is lifted to the pinnacle of human sufficiency and 
glorified above allearthly magnificence. There is 
something intentionally horrifying in the sudden- 
ness of the contrast. Fresh from his luxurious 
ease, Dives is in torments; quicker than a troop 
of bandits strip a traveler, is he stripped of all the 
inexhaustible equipment for comfortable living 
which had characterized him in life. In the 
suddenness, completeness, and terror of the con- 
trast, it is comparable to that which passes under 
a brilliant southern sky where nature has been 
prodigal of her beauties, when there is but one 
moment’s murmur, and the earth opens, pours 
out its flood of fire, and the fruitful land lies 
a scorched and sterile waste. 

It need scarcely be said that this is merely a 
pictorial or figurative representation. Disem- 
bodied spirits have not eyes, fingers, tongues, 
voices. But the impression conveyed to the 
reader is strictly true, that a man’s condition in 
this life may be reversed in the world to come. 
The truth our Lord desired in the first place to 
enforce was, that what is highly esteemed among 
men is abomination in the sight of God—that 
while men hurry past Lazarus with sickening re- 
vulsion and seek the company of the luxurious 
Dives in his well-appointed house, it is from Dives 
that God turns with loathing. This is not at once 
made apparent, but in the ordinary course of things 

25 


386 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


this judgment of God finds its counterpart in 
actual events and circumstances. And it is a pity 
that we should be so little able to enter into and 
sympathize with God’s judgments; that our ad- 
miration should be so much spent upon rank, ta- 
lent, wealth, success and prosperity. The man who 
invents a machine or makes a discovery which will 
facilitate business operations or add to the con- 
veniences of life is at once raised to a pinnacle of 
fame ; the author of a brilliant novel orthe leader 
of a political party can scarcely make his way 
through applauding crowds. And it seems un- 
gracious to turn the other side of the picture, 
and show their rank and place in a world where 
rank and place are determined solely by character. 
Yet the fact is that all things that make the 
greatest show in the world, wealth and power and 
genius, are the mere instruments with which char- 
acter works, and are useful or hurtful according 
as the motive that wields them is good or evil. 
Let us learn then to esteem character, that it may 
not be said of usalso, that what is highly esteemed 
by us is abomination in God’s sight. It isof the 
essence of Pharisaism to be deceived by appear- 
ances, to have its judgment arrested on the out- 
side and the surface, to be satisfied if the manners 
are good and the outward conduct respectable. 
It is weak and Pharisaic to be taken in by what 
is not of the essence of the man, and may be 
changed with circumstances, and must be left be- 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 387 


hind at death. And it is this way of judging by 
the outsides and accidents of things, that prepares 
those tremendous reversals of human judgment 
exemplified in the Parable. If men were now 
grouped and ranked according to their spiritual 
and moral qualities, how often would rags take 
precedence of purple, and the outcast from under 
the hedge be counted more valuable for all eternal 
purposes than the well-housed and respectable 
citizen. 

On the other hand, when tempted to murmur 
at the rougher portions of your lot, when you 
begin to look upon your misfortunes as punish- 
ment driving you from God, when you suffer 
your outward circumstances to regulate your 
inward peace, and find it hard to believe in the 
love of God when it sends you no better physicians 
than dogs, no ampler provision than crumbs from 
a rich man’s table, remember Lazarus, and learn 
that the outward circumstances of this life is no 
index by which you may read the relation you 
hold to God ; that you may have one value in this 
world, another in the world to come; that here 
outward circumstances are the training of saints, 
there the unmistakable indication of the spiritual 
condition, sinners there being the only sufferers. 

If the Parable, however, merely exhibited the 
sudden and shocking reversal of human judg- 
ments and alteration of human conditions, it might 
be open to the charge often brought against it, 


388 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


that it is a mere condemnation of wealthy men as 
wealthy and a defense of poverty. But the Par- 
able at once proceeds to show on what the revers- 
al of human judgment is founded—it goes on to 
show what the character of the rich man had been, 
what was the moral element and principle which 
ran through and determined his life upon earth. 
“Son, remember,” says Abraham to him, “ re- 
member that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy 
good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things.” 
That is to say, if you desired equality with Lazarus 
in this world of spirits, you should have laid the 
foundation for it in giving him equality with you 
in your lifetime. Had you made friends with the 
unrighteous mammon which you so abundantly 
possessed, you would have been anxiously ex- 
pected and welcomed by Lazarus and all those 
you blessed. Had you used your wealth as God’s 
steward for the use of God’s suffering creatures, 
you would now beenjoying pleasures greater than 
ever you experienced on earth. You beg for the 
_ friendship of Lazarus now, and entreat his kindly 
offices ; but you had the means of making him 
your friend while on earth. He is now beyond 
reach of your good things and friendship, and 
you are beyond reach of his. It is you yourself 
who allowed the contrast between you and Laz- 
arus to abide, and it does abide. ‘ Remember,” 
look back on your earthly life, reflect upon its op- 
portunities and the way you used them, and you 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 389 


will understand the origin and the justice of your 
present condition ; you will recognize that it is 
yourself who have fixed this yawning chasm be- 
tween you and all permanent joy. You did not 
bridge the chasm between you in life—you did 
not leave your splendor to sit by his side, to hold 
his racking, weary head, to drive off the dogs and 
make him feel that at least in one human breast 
he had an asylum—you did not even send your serv- 
ants to bring him in to an outhouse to lie among 
your cattle—you had everything that he needed 
and you left him in his need—you did not inquire 
into his necessities, nor penetrate through the 
rags and stench and poverty to the humanity 
they encased—you did not own him as a brother, 
and in anticipation of his lying in Abraham’s 
bosom at the banquet of eternal bliss, take him in 
to yourself—you stood aloofand separated yourself 
from him, and that separation abides. Had you 
shared with him on earth, you would have shared 
with him now. 

This is no doubt a pretty hard lesson to learn. 
And I believe those will feel its hardness most 
who have most desire to learn it ; who have can. 
dor enough and integrity of purpose enough 
to look straight at our Lord as He utters this 
counsel, and to feel that if they are to maintain a 
conscience void of offense they must be clear in 
their own minds as to the use they make of 
money and advantages. It is startling, too, to 


390 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


find that the destiny of Dives was determined by 
his conduct towards this one poor man; little as 
he thought of him, it was this powerless creature 
who could not even crawl into his path and force 
attention, who was exercising a more determin- 
ing influence on his future than any of those who 
thronged his banqueting rooms and discussed 
with him all his plans and new devices of money- 
making or money-spending. What one person is 
it who holds this relation to our life ; perhaps as 
little thought of by us as Lazarus by Dives, and 
yet truly determining what we are to be and to 
have in eternity? The man whose wants you 
relieve sullenly, almost angrily ; the man whose 
too frequently recurring necessities you resent 
and spurn ; the person who crossed your path 
when you were too much occupied with your 
own joys to observe his face of starvation or 
disease ; such persons, and they whose claims 
you now refuse to look at for a moment, are 
determining your eternal condition. 

But “ beside all this”—the thing you ask is 
impossible. It is, in the first place, just that 
there should be this reversal of your condition ; 
but supposing that Lazarus were willing to for- 
get the long wretched hours he spent at your 
gate, or supposing that his experience of pain 
made him sensitive to yours and anxious to re- 
lieve it, the thing cannot be done. This too is 


an essential part of the Parable. The re 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 391 


duced by character and a life-long habit cannot 
be expunged inthe -easy—way—suggested by 
Dives. The consequences of a selfish life of pleas- 


uré cannot be reversed as Soon as they begin to 
be uncomfortable and distressing. If you take; 


the wrong turning at the entrance to a mountain 






pass, you May emerge very near — rienad w 


beet That hem aa oo gility_can_leap—the 
only way is to go right back and follow the path 
hé has taken, and if itis too la £: 
thé TIght has fallen and the mist closed around” 
you, no beseeching of the inexorable oe 
pairyour error. Soa life of easy careless selfsh- 
nessteads to a moral condition, a—state—of-heart 
ot, from which no s €ap mg 

aman into the company and condition of those 
who fave passed through long years of purifying 
panrand patient endurance that have tested every 
It is a grave charge indeed that we are each of 
us entrusted with—to determine for ourselves 
the eternity in which we are to live. And are 
we to expect that this can be well done without 
thought, care, conflict, all that can prove us men 
and bring out our manhood? Does any one 
resent being called upon to be in earnest and to’ 
make this life an ideal and a noble life for him- 
self? Does any one object to this life being a 
real trial of men, fitted to determine and actually 


392 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


determining what they really are?—Surely no 
right-minded person would shrink from a test 
that is real, that goes deep enough to search the 
very roots of evil and of good in us. 

One would naturally expect that the Parable 
would close at this point. The doom of the 
selfish pleasure-seeker, of the man who does not 
use the means in his power to help the needy, 
has been clearly shown. It has been shown that 
if Pharisees on earth deride the proposal to serve 
God only and not mammon at all, the Pharisee 
who has left earth is in no laughing mood, is 
convinced of the justice of his doom and the 
impossibility of relief. And one would suppose 
this left no more to be said. But if no more 
had been said, the Pharisees, ever ready to justify 
themselves, would have said: This is a mere fancy 
sketch, spoken under provocation for the sake of 
alarming us. If things were as He represents 
them to be, some courteous ghost would blab it 
out—we should not be left by our father Abra- 
ham to glide on to such a doom, unstayed and 
unwarned. Anticipating such evasions, our Lord 
appends the pathetic supplication of Dives: “If 
I am past redemption, save my brethren; if no 
relief can reach me in this place of torment, hinder 
them from a similar doom.’”’ And this request is 
introduced merely for the sake of bringing out 
that already all needed warning is given, and that 
the proposed additional warning would have no 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 393 


effect whatever—that is to say, the Pharisees are 
without excuse if they continue their attempts 
to make the best of both worlds. 

The statement of the Parable, however, to the 
- effect that those who disregard Moses and the 
Prophets would equally disregard the appearance 
of a dead friend, is one which at first seems open 
to question. Who I has not often longed to lift 


of the dead? Who has not felt as if it would be 
so much easier to believe if we could but for one 
hour seé? Who has not been ready to say with 
these Pharisees : “Why not end all this doubt, all 
this plague of skepticism, all this brutality and 
worldliness, by sending back from among the dead 
some messengers who might be identified, and 
who might plainly tell us what they” know, and 
allow us to “cross-examine them? Could they be 
better employed? And if faith is so desirable, 
why i is not everything done that can be done to 
give _us faith? If there is a spiritual world in 
which it is so important that we believe, why are 
we not put in direct communication with it so that 
it would become as real to us as France or China 
or any country of whose existence we have no 
doubt, although we have never seen it? Is it 
possible that this world anda world so utterly 
different can be in so close a connection, as if 
separated only by a paper screen through which 
aman may any moment fall, and that yet we 


394 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


should so little know what passes in that world ? 
Is it_possible_ that that .world.can be. filled with 
friends of our own, and yet not one of them whis- 
pers usa single word, no more than if there were 
no such world at all? Is it possible that men 
who are to- day fully occupied..with this world, 
following it its fashion and leaying the world of ret- 
ribution to sober, religious people, may to-morrow 
find themselyes in that world? And if so, why 
does not nature herself cry out to warn us from 
our ruin? Why do not the spirits of the dead 
return ‘and command us to "hold back? 
“Such feelings are natural, but they are mis- 
leading. The rich man’s brethren were heedless 
of the unseen world, not because they did not 
believe that any future state awaited them, but 
because this world’s pleasures absorbed their in- 
terest. It was a profound moral change they 
needed, and for effecting such a change, “ Moses 
and the Prophets,” the continuous revelation of 
God and His holiness in the past, was a much 
more powerful and appropriate instrument than 
an apparition. By such a messenger from the 
dead as the rich man proposed—supposing his 
message could be authenticated—our ideas of 
what lies beyond the veil might be altered, and 
fear might lead us to adapt our conduct to the 
revealed future; but could our character be thus 
changed? No revelation of punishment awaiting 
the evil-doer could avail to make us different in 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 395 


heart, or could unfix our real inward affections 
from sensual and worldly objects, and fix them 
upon God and what is spiritual and holy. Only 
the revelation to our own souls of the beauty of 
holiness, only the revelation of God, in the fullest 
sense of these words, can teach us to fix our 
hearts unalterably on God and all that lives with 
Him and in Him. Only by seeing and knowing 
Him can we learn to love Him; and only by 
loving Him are we perfected as men. 

It is doubtful if even the information given by 
such a messenger—apart altogether from the ef- 
fects such information might produce—would be 
of much value, or would be permanently accepted 
as valid. It is true, many in our own day are per- 
suaded that they receive the most assured knowl- 
edge of the unseen world by holding direct com- 
munication with those who have entered it, and 
I would be slow to deny the possibility or actual- 
ity of all such communication; but as yet this 
method of discovering the unseen has merely 
shown how constant a craving for such knowledge 
exists in men, rather than that much assured and 
wholesome truth has been reached by it. He was 
more deeply instructed who rather shrank from 
any such reappearances of the dead, and anticipated 
the fruitlessness of any such comfort : 


‘Tf any vision should reveal 
Thy likeness, I might countin vain, 
As but the canker of the brain ; 
Yea, though it spake and made appeal 


396 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


To chances where our lots were cast 
Together in the days behind, 
I might but say, I hear a wind 
Or memory murmuring the past.” 


It is not in that direction we need look for 
relief from our skepticism with all its unrest, 
vacillation, and brooding sadness. But does not 
God everywhere elude observation? Is God not 
unwilling that we should know Him? Does He 
not hide Himself? Are not clouds and dark- 
ness impenetrable round about Him? Not so. 
God seeks to make Himself known to you. He 
wishes to bring as much light as possible into 
your mind, and has used the best means of 
introducing that light. Why then do so many 
earnest men spend their years in a vain search 
for God? Why have so many most thoughtful 
and inquiring men missed the light they have all 
their days been looking for, and without which 
they have no joy in life? Partly, perhaps chiefly, 
because, like the rich man, each inquirer prefers 
some self-devised method of revelation to the 
method God has actually adopted. To those who 
understand that God is the One Living Spirit, all 
things reveal Him, He besets them behind and 
before, and though they should be oppressed by 
the presence and flee from it, God awaits them in 
their place of flight and they cannot escape Him. 
The intelligence discernible in all things, in their 
harmony and unity, in their universal subservience 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 397 


of one planand contribution to progress—this is 
God. The holy love that is discernible in the law 
that governs human affairs—this is God. More 
discernible is this law in Jewish history than else- 
where, because the Jews awaited its working, and 
observed and recorded it, while other races mis- 
took what they had to deal with. But if men 
look for a God that is not or where He is 
not, they cannot find Him. If they will not 
look at things as they actually are; if they will 
not consider what Mosesand the Prophets teach ; 
if they will not recognize the unseen Spirit 
that trained and guided and made Himself felt 
by Israel; if they shut their eyesto the embodi- 
ment of that Spirit in Christ, and to His work- 
ing since in millions of our race; if, that is to 
say, they exclude all that is most significant in 
human history, can we expect anything else than 
that the search for God elsewhere will be fruit- 
less and disappointing? Ifwe find God at all, 
we must find Him not spectrally separate from all 
known realities, but in and through all things that 
are, and especially in and through human history 
and our own souls. 

Through all these things God reveals Himself 
to us, as to moral and reasonable creatures, who 
can be more profoundly influenced by appeals 
to conscience and reason than by startling and 
abnormal apparitions. And if from these things 
we can learn nothing about God and our duty to 


398 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Him, still less are we likely to learn from necro- 
mancy. Conscience lies deeper in us and is amore 
essential organ than the eye, and if conscience 
responds to all that Moses and the Prophets, com- 
pleted and interpreted by Christ, tell us about 
God, this is an infinitely worthier testimony to 
His existence and His truth than if an unsubstan- 
tial shade hovered before the eye, and in some 
hollow, sepulchral mutterings, warned us of the 
results of unbelief. If your faith is weak, do not 
wait for unusual manifestations or novel proofs of 
things unseen, but use the meansof knowing God 
which others have found sufficient, and which 
God has actually furnished. Keep your mind 
saturated with the teachings and life of Christ, 
and what your conscience responds to, see that you 
act upon. Forif the humble and loving tone of 
the morality you find there enters into your blood, 
the eyes of your understanding will become 
brighter to discern spiritual things. Begin at the 
right end, and with what is already within your 
reach. Begin with what you know to be true, that 
is, with what your conscience accepts. Begin with 
obedience, with gratefully accepting a light 
upon duty and upon your relation to the per- 
sons and things around you which you cannot 
but own to be the truest and best, and by fol- 
lowing this light you will at length reach an 
atmosphere in which things will assume their 
right and true proportions. Thus will you earn 


DIVES AND LAZARUS. 399 


the reward of humility and truthfulness of spirit, 
mot outrunning your actual faith, but not lag- 
ging behind conscience; thus will you learn the 
truth of the Lord’s own words: “If any man do 
the will of God, he shall know of the doctrine 
whether it be of God.”” The pure in heart shall 
see God; if not now, then hereafter. 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 
LUKE xviii. 1-8, and LUKE xi. 5-13. 


THE two Parables of the Importunate Friend 
at midnight and the Importunate Widow illus- 
trate the same idea, that importunity prevails 
irrespective of the character or disposition of the 
person on whom it is practised. Alike in this, 
the Parables differ inasmuch as the one has a 
general, the other a special reference. The suc- 
cessful importunity of the midnight petitioner is 
a sample of the success that attends all persever- 
ing prayer. The widow's conquest of the surly 
judge is intended to encourage the disciples of 
Christ to the persistent expectation of His second 
coming, and to unwearied prayer for that good 
time when all their desires shall be fulfilled. All 
prayer is trying to the character, and few per- 
sons there are who can perseveringly offer the 
“effectual fervent’ prayer which avails: but there 
is special temptation to faint in prayer for the 
coming of the Sonof man. Wrongsare so slowly 
righted ; wisdom, justice, and righteousness make 
such little way upon earth: misery and wicked- 
ness renew themselves with a vigor so unabated, 


that the most sanguine are often tempted to refer 
400 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 401 


this to indifference on the part of Him who reigns 
and hasall power. It is not easy to reconcile the 
meagre, unsatisfactory results of Christianity in 
the world with the claims and promises of Christ, 
and under the pressure of this difficulty many 
cease to hope and pray and sink into a bewildered 
or quite unbelieving habit. 

These Parables, then, are meant to afford us 
effectual encouragement in prayer. Those who 
first faint in prayer and then cease to pray com- 
monly do so from some kind of latent feeling that 
God does not regard them. Well, says our Lord, 
even supposing He does not regard you, do not 
give up asking, for even in the most unpromising 
circumstances persevering and importunate en- 
treaty gets what itseeks. Take the most sluggish 
and selfish nature, the man who won’t so much 
as get out of bed to do a friend a good turn,— 
you can make him do what you want by the very 
simple device of going on knocking till you cause 
it to dawn upon his slumbering brain that the 
only way to get the sleep he so much desires is 
first of allto satisfy you. Ortake the other most 
unpromising case you can think of, that of a 
thoroughly and unscrupulously unjust judge. 
The man who, of all living Englishmen, knows 
the East best, says that “there are three ways of 
treating Asiatic officials—by bribe, by bullying, 
or by bothering them with a dogged perseverance 


into attending to you and your concerns.” The 
26 


402 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. ~ 


two former methods being out of the question 
with a poor widow, she adopts the third. She 
does not go home and wail to her children, she 
does not content herself with regretfully wishing 
that a just judge occupied the judgment seat; 
she merely makes up her mind: “I w7// have 
justice. I will annoy, pester, harass, torment, 
plague him, until he sees that the easier course 
for himself is to look into my matters. Iam but 
a poor, desolate, weak creature; but as the small 
insect can madden the hugest beast of the forest, 
so will I fix upon him until he shall be glad to get 
quit of me at any price.” 

The principle which these Parables illustrate is 
well understood—the principle that importunity 
succeeds in wringing consent from the reluctant, 
relief from the niggardly, its own way from all. 
The dog that is driven from following his master 
understands that, if he only continue, his master 
will yield and give him his way. Never a child 
grew up ignorant of this, that prolonged, persistent 
crying can wring from a parent what has been ab- 
solutely refused at first. It is to this principle the 
beggar trusts when he obstinately shuts his ears 
to denial, and follows supplicating till an alms is 
given, not to relieve him, but to relieve the giver. 
And it was on this principle the widow of the 
Parable acted, not counting at all on the charity 
of the judge, but still confident that she would 
get from him what he had no desire nor intention 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 403 


to give her; knowing that, if she only held to 
him, the time would come when he should be 
forced to say, “‘ Because this widow troubleth me, 
I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming 
she weary me.” There was nothing in the judge 
the widow could count upon. There was no in- 
fluence, human or Divine, whichthis poor woman 
could bring to bear upon him. Would she threaten 
him with Divine vengeance and call heaven to 
witness against his injustice? He would like it, 
he would count it a treat; he would call in his 
companions to help him to enjoy the widow’s 
anguish. Would she come meekly, piteously, 
and fall at his feet, pointing to her sackcloth and 
her train of helpless children? Would she hold 
up to him the little infant to smile in his face and 
melt the hard heart? He would drive her from 
his judgment seat with a curse, or he would jest 
with her, or turn to other business. Would she 
inform against him or expose him? He was al- 
ready exposed, and had nothingto hide. Would 
she get help against him? But he was the man 
of whom all others were afraid. Here, in short, 
was a man of whom the description is intended 
to convey to us the idea that he was thoroughly 
impracticable,—that if in any circumstances a 
person might seem warranted in turning away 
hopeless, this widow was in such circumstances, 
and yet she obtained her request. 

The argument our Lord builds on these 


404 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


instances is very intelligible and very cogent. 
Reckon on finding in God no more readiness to 
hear and to help than you can count on in the 
most hardened and illiberal and selfish of men, 
and yet do not rest till you obtain your request 
from Him. Though you have not yet succeeded, 
and though you are beginning to think prayer 
utterly useless and a mere waste of time and 
of feeling, follow Him, cry after Him, lay hold 
on His skirt, and weary Him into compliance. 
Though, so far from indicating the slightest 
willingness to help and bless you, God had 
again and again repulsed you; though He had 
given you every reason to believe that He 
would never grant your request nor raise a 
finger to help you, yet the course which reason 
and your own interest approve is to persist in 
presenting your suit before Him. To do other- 
wise would be to prove yourselves bereft of the 
wit of this poor untrained widow, and even of 
the instinct of the inferior creatures. Though 
you had reason to believe that God has no love, 
no interest in you, that you are as unlikely to 
move Him as this widow who had none to 
speak a word for her to the judge, though all 
the world is saying, ‘“ There is no help for him 
in God,” and though your own soul is saying, 
“Tam forgotten as a dead man out of mind,” 
yet you may have your desire. Only when you 
can say, There is nothing God can give me; 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 405 


only when you can say that already you have 
in actual and secure possession what you are 
ready to spend eternity with; only then can 
you reasonably cease to pray. 

This, however, by no means exhausts the 
force of our Lord’s argument in the Parable. 
There is a “how much more” in it. The ar- 
gument is not merely, If the unjust judge was 
thus coerced, you may also expect God to 
yield; but rather, If persistent entreaty pre- 
vailed with one who was resolved not to give, 
how much more will it prevail with one who is 
more anxious than the petitioner himself that 
justice be done. Suppose that the wisdom and 
integrity of the judge had never been ques- 
tioned ; that his name had become the synonym 
for righteous and equitable judgment; that 
every man who had a just cause rejoiced when 
appeal could be made to him; and that he was 
especially regarded by the poor and oppressed 
as their champion and defender; nothing but 
unpardonable weakness could have made the 
widow despair of being heard by sucha man. 
Suppose that her case required delay, and that 
the judge had assured her of this in the ten- 
derest and most encouraging terms that could 
be used from his seat of office—would she not 
have been almost worthy of misery had she 
gone from court grumbling or fearful? Suppose 
still further that during the whole term of her 


406 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


suit the judge was doing her many acts of 
kindness, providing for her children, reminding 
her of his friendship for her deceased husband, 
assuring her on his oath of the ultimate success 
of her appeal, sending her every morning some 
little token to keep her heart up—can you 
conceive any one so unreasonable as to cherish 
suspicion in such circumstances? But even 
such a state of matters does not represent our 
own relation to God in prayer. For it is ab- 
solute justice, absolute faithfulness, absolute 
simplicity of purpose to bless us, with which we 
have to do. 

In our day fainting in prayer arises not from 
any direct doubt of God’s goodness so much as 
from the belief that, however much He was con- 
cerned in setting this world in motion at the 
first, He has retired from any active interfe- 
rence in its affairs, and allows it to be regulated 
solely by laws inherent in things themselves, 
or at any rate actually in existence and inexo- 
rable. We all find that this world, with ourselves 
and all else that is in it, is under certain laws— 
laws of nature, as we call them. We find that 
a certain never-failing order of things is estab- 
lished. The sun rises every morning without 
fail, without fail it shines on us more in summer 
than in winter; the tides ebb and flow in un- 
altering and calculable order; certain diseases 
have a course that can be predicted. Wherever 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 407 


we recognize this inflexible course of things, we 
accept it as the order established by God's will 
and submit ourselves to it. Aman may know 
that the rising of to-morrow’s sun will bring 
with it death or misery worse than death, but 
he does not pray that the sun may not rise. 
He knows that, pray as he may, the sun will 
rise. The godly maiden, who for her faith was 
bound to a stake within reach of the tide, did 
not pray that the tide might be stayed in its 
flow; or, whether she prayed or not, the tide, 
gradually and precisely in its usual manner, 
came in, making no recognition of her prayers 
or of her condition. The most believing of men 
ceases to pray for the life of a friend who is 
declared and seen to be drawing near to death. 
In such cases it becomes apparent to the peti- 
tioner that his desires are not consistent with 
the will of God, and he feels that to continue to 
pray would be not reverent but irreverent. 

But it is argued, and with much plausibility, 
that every future event, every occurrence of any 
kind that may in any way affect us, is already 
as certain as the death of a man incurably dis- 
eased. The storm which wrecks the ill-fated 
ship is not aroused by chance, but by definite 
though sometimes obscure and complicated 
causes. And if the wife or mother who prays 
for those at sea saw these causes, would not 
prayer die from her lips, and the chill of despair 


408 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


freeze the warm utterances of faith? The prayer 
is uttered because the event is not seen to be 
certain; the effect is not seenin the cause; but 
an enlarged knowledge of the laws of nature, a 
deeper insight into the connection of one thing 
with another, would see that only one event is 
possible, and that it is useless hoping for any 
other. Every man ceases to pray when he sees 
what is going to happen. But everything is as 
certainly produced by causes already in exist- 
ence, as that effect which he distinctly foresees. 
We pray because we are ignorant of what is 
going to take place; but if our knowledge of all 
the laws of nature were as accurate as our knowl- 
edge of some of them is, we should altogether 
cease to pray. 

Many persons, moved by such representations, 
do abandon the practise of prayer. We may sup- 
pose one of their number stating his case in this 
way: I believe in God. I believe that every law 
which regulates the course of things in this world 
is of His appointment, and is therefore the best 
possible. I am perfectly satisfied with what I re- 
ceive from the operation of these laws; any suf- 
fering I have to endure I recognize as perfectly 
just. I am aware that the government under 
which I should have been perfectly happy could 
not have been a just government. I am content 
to live on under these laws, and I resign myself 
to them. But when you ask me to pray, you 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 409 


perplex me. I can worship God: I can come to 
Him morning and evening and acknowledge Him 
and delight in Him. But when you ask meto be 
continually laying before Him some request for 
His interference with the natural result of those 
very laws He has appointed as the best; when 
you bid me ask Him for anything which would 
not come to me by the operation of natural laws, 
you perplex me wholly. Prayer, instead of being 
the strength and joy of my religion, has been my 
permanent difficulty, aninsoluble puzzle. Iseem 
to have more faith in God when I do not pray. I 
find it easier to believe in God when I think of 
Him as the Author of nature who knows that 
“we have need of all these things,” than when I 
am asked to supplicate His interference with the 
established order of things. 

And yet the reasoning which results in prayer- 
lessness is not so conclusive as it seems. This 
reverence for the order ofnature, on which it pro- 
ceeds, does not prevent its devotees from resist- 
ing its laws to the utmost and from endeavoring 
to manipulate them to their own advantage. 
They check the natural course of a disease, and 
thwart the operation of the laws which govern 
disease, by the skill that comes of accumulated 
observation and experiment. They do not allow 
nature to take its course, but guide it so as to 
avert threatening danger. May not God do the 
same? May not the subtle, incomprehensible 


410 * THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Intelligence that resides in nature and upholds 
it, guide it in ways and to issues unattainable by 
our puny efforts? 

There are two powers which we ourselves pos- 
sess and which we cannot but ascribe to God also. 
We have, first, a power in our own wills to move 
our own bodies. This power is mysterious and 
not as yet understood. We cannot understand 
how a spiritual force such as that of the will can 
become a physical force, lifting the arm, moving 
the lips, and so forth. But, understood or not 
understood, the power exists. God, though un- 
seen and spiritual, has the same power directly to 
move material things and effect His will in them. 
To this power the limit can only be in God Him- 
self, not in any external obstacle. 

We have also a power to play off one law of 
nature against another; to make a balloon rise, 
e.g. by using the law of the levity of gas to 
counteract the law of gravitation. We can make 
one ingredient in nature counterwork another, 
and so use its right hand against its left as to 
make it harmless where otherwise it would be 
hurtful. The law that guides a disease to a fatal 
issue we can defeat by the help of another law 
which gives to certain remedies power to check 
and remove the disease. By adjusting one law 
of nature to another, by bringing together things 
naturally separate, and by directing the course of 
natural law into channels of our own devising, we 


| 


; 





THE UNJUST JUDGE: 4II 


can bring about results of the most surprising 
kind, and which could never be brought about by 
nature herself. The telescope, the hydraulic 


press, the railway, the telegraph—these are not 


natural results, but they are results of natural 
laws manipulated by human ingenuity. This 


| power to use nature for purposes she could never 
of herself accomplish, we cannot but ascribe to 


God as well as to ourselves. We cannot but be- 


' lieve that if there be a God, a conscious, intelli- 
gent, individual existence at the root of all that 


is, He must have this power of playing off one 


law of nature against another, and of so guiding, 


controlling, and adapting the whole of nature and 
every part of it as to work out His own purposes. 


| He has this power, not in the measure we have it 
'so that we can produce results which seem mi- 


raculous to the uninitiated, but absolutely and 


_ without measure so that He can produce results 
| inconceivable and incomprehensible. 


But even though God’s power to answer prayer 


_ be not questioned, it may still be doubted whether 
_ He can be expected to depart from His purpose 
or “plan” of all that is to be. It is sometimes 
_ said to be impious, irreverent, blasphemous, to 
_ ask God to allow our wills to influence His, our 


wisdom to instruct His, our interests to counter- 
balance the interests of the universe. But it is 
obvious that God’s plan may have included this 
very thing, that certain results are to be brought 


412 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


about by prayer. God’s eternal will and knowl- 
edge embrace not only certain ends that are to 
be accomplished, but all that is to bring about 
these ends. His design is not an outline or 
skeleton draft of the future, but an outline filled” 
in with every detail. It is very conceivable that 
God may have ordained that such and such things 
take place in connection with and as the result 
of the prayers of those who wait upon Him; and 
if so, prayer cannot be considered an interference 
with His plan, but a fulfilment of it. 

But that which too frequently gives force to 
all objections is our own experience of the slender 
results of prayer. We faint in prayer, and gradu- 
ally become formal and remiss, because our own 
prayers have so often been apparently in vain. 
We believe in hard work, because what we work 
for we get. We can see in our life the results of 
hard work; but some of us are ready to say we 
can see in our possession not one thing which we 
might not equally have had, had we never prayed. 
This is the temptation not only of the individual, 
but of the Church. All Christian people have 
been praying for eighteen centuries that the king- 
dom of God might come, and how small an ap- 
pearance of answer has there been. 

But convincing as the evidence of experience 
is, we may misconstrue experience, and must 
balance it by considerations which also have 
weight. We must consider that there may be 





THE UNJUST JUDGE. 413 


good reason for not answering some prayers, and 
also that our Lord foresaw that it would be diffi- 
cult to maintain faith and therefore encourages us 
to do so. 

That there may be reason for not answering 
some prayers we cannot but admit. We are 
aware that we have uttered unseasonable, ill-con- 
sidered, petulant, unholy prayers. It cannot but 
make us ashamed to reflect how frequently we 
have besought God to pander to the most un- 
worthy feelings, to make provision for the flesh, 
to satisfy our own petty ambition, to gratify 
some earthly passion. Prayers which at bottom 
are dictated by mere self-love, sensuality, ambi- 
tion, envy, revenge, covetousness, are not heard. 
And if in our conscience we know that the disap- 
pointment of our desires was calculated to do us 
more good than their gratification ; if, that is, we 
recognize that the consideration which refused 
our petitions was really deeper than that which 
should have granted them; then we see how 
right and reasonable has been the delay in an- 
swering us. And such delays are teaching us 
more and more that it is when we “ seek first the 
kingdom of God and His righteousness” that we 
are answered speedily; it is when we get up 


above what is merely selfish, individual, and 


earthly, and rise to the region in which we begin 
to see what it is God is aiming at and counts 
worthy of His effort, it is when our hearts are 


Al4 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


enlarged by a knowledge of His purposes, and we 
begin to seek the common good and blessings 
that are eternal, that we feel confidence in prayer 
and know it must prevail. 

Answers are delayed, too, because the prayer 
was not hearty. God has made no promise to 
answer insincere prayer; and that prayer is insin- 
cere which is not followed up by hearty efforts to 
obtain the thing sought. Or it is so formal that, 
though the answer came, we should not recognize 
it. Angels are at our gates, but because their 
wings are folded and we have not traced their 
descent from heaven, we do not notice them nor 
invite them to abide with us. We lose thusa 
thousand of God’s gifts, not recognizing that the 
very thing we need is brought within our reach. 
We see the change of circumstances, not the 
fresh opportunity ; we feel the disappointment, 
not the hand of God giving us humility ; we recog- 
nize the bitterness and the sorrow, but not the 
heavenly mind and abandonment of worldly am- 
bitions which they enfold. 

Again, there is an order in God’s gifts, and we 
cannot have the greater unless first we have the 
less. We ask God to give us this or that grace, 
as if it could be suddenly conferred upon us, ir- 
respective of our present character; and we ask 
it without considering how much we ourselves 
may have to do and to suffer before we can attain 
it. Character has an organic jntegrity and a con- 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. 415 


secutive growth as atree has. You cannot ex- 
pect fruit if there has been no blossom. No 
power can cause fruit to grow before a branch 
has grown to bear it. But in many of our peti- 
tions we ask God to give us fruit without either 
branch, blossom, or time. We ask Him to build 
the top story of our house before the lower story 
is begun. We wish ability to accomplish certain 
objects before we have the fundamental graces 
out of which that ability can alone spring. Your 
child asks you to give him your skill in calculat- 
ing or your knowledge of a language; what can 
you do? You can only say to him, “ My boy, 
these things cannot be immediately given. I 
-can only see that you are educated and help you 
to persevere, and one day you will have the 
knowledge you ask. But it cannot be given; it 
must grow. You cannot get it without me, but 
neither can you get it without much hard work 
of your own.” 

So when we are suddenly put to shame by our 
lack of Christian temper, or courage, or charity, 
or sobriety of mind, or unworldliness, we as sud- 
denly ask Christ for the grace we need, appar- 
ently supposing that it is as easily manufactured 
and assumed as a new suit of clothes; that we 
have just to give the order and put on the ready- 
made habit. Let us deal reasonably with God. 
Let us bear in mind that many of the gifts weare 
in the habit of asking are such qualities of soul as 


416 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


can be produced only by long and painful pro- 
cesses. You ask for humility. Do you consider 
that in so doing you ask for that which makes 
humility humiliation; for failure, mortified vanity 
disappointed hopes? You ask for a heavenly 
mind. Do you consider that in so doing you ask 
to be led forward to those painful times which 
compel men to feel that here they have no per- 
manent home? You ask to be near Christ and 
like Him. Can you be baptized with His baptism, 
can you drink of His cup? 

But undoubtedly that on which we chiefly and 
wisely fall back is the plain command of our 
Lord, that we should continue praying. Very 
often we have just to own we do not see all round 
this matter, and abide by the unmistakable 
promise which built up our Lord’s own strength, 
‘“‘ Ask, and ye shall receive.” If there was one 
thing more than another He taught about God, 
it was just this, that He answers prayer; if there 
is any truth, any meaning in His plain assertion 
that He knew God, and that by having been in 
heaven He understood how heavenly things are 
managed, then there can be no doubt that if we 
go on asking we shall receive, and that if we go 
on knocking at that door which now is shut we 
shall one day find entrance to the light we crave, 
and pass through allthat bars our progress. This 
is the time of seeking, this is the time when we 
may reasonably say, ‘‘ We are but of yesterday, 


——— 


THE UNJUST JUDGE. AL7 


and know nothing;”’ it becomes us, therefore, to 

believe, to inquire, to be diligent in seeking what 

our highest instincts prompt us to, assured that 

one day the door shall be open to those who have 

besieged it, and that we shall have what we now 

crave and enter on the fruit of all honest effort. 
27 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN 
AT PRAYER. 


LUKE xviii. 9-14. 


THE purpose of this trenchant Parable is ex- 
plicitly stated. It was leveled at those who 
“trusted in themselves that they were righteous, 
and despised others.’’ Such a temper is offensive 
in whatever field of conduct it is displayed. It 
must not be confounded with humble self-reliance. 
It is quite possible to have acorrect estimate both 
of one’s own merits and of other people’s. A 
military commander frequently conjoins with 
entire self-confidence a salutary respect for the 
skill and strength of the force that opposes him. 
But a self-confidence which exhibits itself at the 
éxpense of other men, and counts its merits ex- 
ceptional, is offensive, and if not empty and 
delusive is at least foolish. Self-admiration ef- 
fectually excludes a man from the admiration of 
others; and although self-confidence will often 
carry a man over many of the ordinary difficulties 
of life, it almost certainly betrays him into greater 
difficulties. 

That religion, whose function it is to render 
men sae cal and loving, should actually in many 

41 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 419 


instances make them self-satisfied and contemptu- 
ous, calls for explanation. And the explanation 
is not far to seek. Human nature displays itself 
in religion as in everything else with which men 
have to do. The men who inthe ordinary walks 
of life seek a cheap success carry their slothful 
ambition into religion, and crave an eminence 
that costs them little. The shallow characters 
that are content to have the appearance without 
the reality, reputation without worth, applause 
without desert, priority and high station without 
superior excellence, are content to be accepted as 
godly, although void of the love of God. And 
this lack of integrity and downright thoroughness, 
this craving for appearance and reputation irre- 
spective of reality and excellence, is so common in 
every community that morality and religion tend 
to be dissociated. There are always persons who 
wish to be recognized as eminently religious ; 
their desire for recognition exceeds their craving 
for that which deserves it, and unconsciously they 
erect a standard of judgment whichis at once easy 
of attainment and out of the ordinary reach. 
Pharisaism was the ripest historical manifesta- 
tion of this constant tendency, and has therefore 
given its name to similar manifestations in all 
ages. With a single touch our Lord brings out in 
the Parable the two characteristics of all Phar- 
isaism—its ambitious motive and its false standard. 
The Pharisee of the Parable thanks God he is not 


420 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


as other men; his religion has been rather an af- 
fair between him and other men than between him 
and God. His object in cultivating religion has 
been to surpass other men and win their favorable 
judgment; and now that he has made good for 
himself the claim to be a religious man he is 
satisfied. Further, the standard of comparison 
which he uses, and by applying which he fancies 
himself superior to others, is one not of morality 
but of superficial purity and formal observances ; 
he is not an adulterer, nor an extortioner, and he 
fasts twice a week. 

It is this tendency to judge by outward acts 
rather than by the essential character, and to sub- 
stitute observances for righteousness, which consti- 
tutes the danger of Pharisaism. Anxious rather 
to have the credit of being righteous than actually 
to be so, the Pharisee thinks it enough to maintain 
an outward purity of life. The letter of the law 
he knows he must satisfy, and in all matters to 
which that letter applies he is careful and exact. 
But while attending to his conduct so far as it 
meets the eye, he is careless of the state of his 
heart. The man, the real nature and permanent 
dispositions, are overlooked, and nothing is 
thought of but the conduct. The idea grows that 
good actions make a good man, and it is forgotten 
that unless the man is good the actions cannot be 
good. The Pharisee holds that good fruit makes 
the tree good, and does not believe that only if 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 421 


the tree is good can the fruit be good. His own 
eternal character he is little concerned about, if 
only he has a good reputation: the real good of 
men is not the object of his moral endeavors, and 
so he is satisfied if he seems to be fulfilling the 
law. There is thus propagated a misconception 
of morality all round; a misconception of its 
nature, of its use, of the means of its attainment. 

Morality being thus misconceived, religion also 
is misconceived. The Pharisee, aiming only at a 
superficial and selfish morality, feels no need of 
coming into a living fellowship with the root of 
all goodness in God. It is impossible, therefore, 
he should understand what religion is. But seek- 
ing to have a conspicuous religion, he finds this in 
a routine of observances which can be performed 
irrespective of character, by good men and bad 
men alike. Certain observances are added to the 
moral law, and by degrees these observances take 
a higher place than the common duties of life. 
These extras come to be considered the distinctive 
mark of a religious man, so that each person’s 
status or rank in the religious world is determined 
by his observance of these, and not by his regard 
to justice, charity, truth, purity. And when 
Pharisaism dominates in any community, men are 
actually judged irrespective of character, and their 
position as religious or irreligious persons is deter- 
mined by their observance or non-observance of 
certain outward forms and practises which have no 


422 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


necessary connection with morality. If inquiry 
is made regarding a man’s religion, if it is asked 
whether he is a religious or an irreligious man, 
such features of his life are cited as, that he has 
prayers in his family night and morning, that he 
is regular in his attendance at church, that he takes 
an interest in ecclesiastical affairs, but not that he 
is honorable and straightforward in business, 
helpful to his relatives, careless of display and of 
gain. It is obvious that a man of no character 
can fast twice a week, and will do so if he can 
thereby secure his own ends. Of all such obsery- 
ances we may use Paul’s language and say, 
“Meat commendeth us not to God: for neither, 
if we eat, are we the better; neither, if we eat not, 
are we the worse.” 

The Pharisee thus misapprehends the meaning 
and use of religious observances, and distorts the 
relation between morality and religion. The 
great end of religion is to bring us into perfect 
harmony with God, a harmony which is not the 
merely apparent and temporary alliance which 
can be effected by compulsion or outward arrange- 
ment, but the thorough unanimity and eternal 
fellowship which result from identity of will and 
similarity of character. In a word, the great end 
of religion is to make us like to God—to make us 
just and loving, truthful and pure. Religion has 
not done its work until we are in very truth the 
children of God; and we cannot be called re- 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 423 


ligious men, in any but a most superficial and 
misleading sense, until we are morally like God. 
In order to accomplish this great end of religion 
a certain training is needful, and this training is 
aided by the observance of certain practises, rites, 
and forms of worship. Prayer, worship, attend- 
ance on ordinances, and so forth, are requisite as 
means for the attainment of the knowledge and 
love of God out of which holiness springs. Un- 
fortunately, the practise of these observances is 
much more obvious as a distinctive mark of re- 
ligious people than the result of them in excep- 
tional holiness of life. Not all who profess re- 
ligion become more upright and less worldly than 
their neighbors, but all who profess religion do 
attend church and maintain certain appearances 
of godliness. And in consequence, these observ- 
ances become identified with religion, while a 
high and pure morality does not become so iden- 
tified ; and in determining whether a man is or is 
not religious, attention is turned to a few habits, 
whose real importance lies solely in what they 
accomplish and not at all in themselves. And 
thus Pharisaism is encouraged; and men who 
would not for the world go to bed without saying 
their prayers, or who make a great scruple about 
it, make no scruple at all about slandering or cheat- 
ing their neighbor, about being cold and sullen 
and tyrannical at home, greedy in business, vin- 
dictive and violent in their dealings with men. 


424 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


Evidently no perversion of religion could be 
more fatal than this substitution of the means for 
the end. To make religion consist in repeating 
prayers, observing fasts, attending ordinances, 
upholding rites, is to reduce it to a pernicious, 
delusive, deadening, worse than useless burden, 
which reasonable men must and ought at once to 
abolish. To encourage men to imagine that they 
have attained the summit of human excellence 
when they can fast twice a week is plainly to bur- 
lesque religion. To induce men to measure their 
religious attainment by their diligence in any 
kind of ritual observances is simply to fatally de- 
lude them. Religion, instead of being the very 
life of the spirit, giving it its true place in the 
universe and imparting to it eternal principles, is 
transformed into a mere matter of external per- 
formances, which might be as accurately dis- 
charged by a soulless automaton. 

The character developed by such a conception 
of religion is obnoxious alike to God and man, 
offending God by a superficial homage and alienat- 
ing men by self-satisfied pride. The God of the 
Pharisee is not the loving Father of all men, but 
a distant, self-seeking Sovereign who must be pro- 
pitiated by rites and ceremonies and sacrifices, 
and who cares little for the love of men and has 
little interest in their genuine spiritual growth. 
The Pharisee’s religion is a mere tax paid to this 
unattractive and impossible Being, and not an 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 425 


essential of human life. And the morediligent in 
his religion the Pharisee is, the less capable does 
he become of cherishing any rational and large 
views of God’s relation to the world and of His 
work in it. 

Such a religion stunts his humanity as well, 
and instead of softening him and widening his 
sympathies and expanding his heart and his life, 
by the consciousness that God is his and will con- 
trol the future, it contracts and hardens his whole 
nature. He is recognizable by his ‘ despising 
others.” A just estimate of the difference in nat- 
ural advantages which makes that easy to one 
which is impossible to others; an intelligent com- 
parison of the various difficulties with which dif- 
ferent men have to contend; a perception of what 
perfectness of character really is, tends to make 
good men slow to pronounce upon their neigh- 
bors. They know something of their own frailty, 
and how much depravity lies hid under a fairly 
righteous conduct; they know how obstinately 
the heart clings to natural vices of thought and 
feeling, and how insecure the attainment already 
made seems to be, and how remote from a state 
in which sin is impossible, and feeling how slight 
and hardly won their own victories are, they have 
sympathy with the defeated and are slow to con- 
demn them. Besides, the chief element in true 
growth is growth in love: no man is making per- 
manent growth in character who is not growing 


426 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


in sympathy, in pity, in helpfulness, in all that con- 
nects him with his fellow-men. To be perfect is 
to be able to add much to the good of the world, 
that is to say, to have the disposition and the abil- 
ity to help weaker men against vice and its con- 
sequences. The attainment in godliness which is 
content with looking down on sinful men and 
keeping its own garments clean is no attainment 
at all. And any true discernment of the actual 
terms on which the battle of right and wrong has 
actually to be fought out by men in this world 
makes it impossible to despise those who fall. 
Pharisaic contempt can only result from a total 
misapprehension of what human virtue consists in 
and of how it is attained. 

Foolish, hateful, and fatal as these views of 
religion are then, we must beware lest we our- 
selves be infected with the leaven of the Pharisees. 
We are so, when we allow our attention to-the 
forms of religion to hide from us our neglect of 
its inward spirit ; when we can detect the slightest 
disposition to judge our religious life by its mani- 
festations in worship rather than by its manifesta- 
tions in conduct ; when we allow ourselves ina 
self-satisfied comparison with those who do not 
carry so many of the external marks of religion 
as we do, but who surpass us in generosity, in 
honor, in kindliness, even in a self-abasing con- 
sciousness of sin. We are infected with the leaven 
of the Pharisees when we in any way mistake 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 427 


means for ends; when we read the Bible or pray 
as if these occupations were duties to be done for 
their own sakes and not for the sake of the result 
they have; when we are satisfied with having 
attended church, though it has done us no good ; 
when we allow religious service to be an end in 
itself and not a means towards something beyond 
itself. Weare infected with the leaven of the 
Pharisees when we look more to the duties we do 
than to the spirit and motive from which they 
spring; when we become satisfied with ourselves 
because we do certain things which other men do 
not, and when in place of lowliness and charity 
our religion is producing in us self-complacency 
and either a hard contempt or a compassionate 
patronage of other men. 

This, then, is the type of religion our Lord ex- 
hibits in the Pharisee of the Parable. He sets 
before the mind’s eye of His hearers a person they 
were very familiar with and secretly abhorred, 
though they feared to express their abhorrence. 
They daily saw the man enter the temple with 
scrupulous conformity to every prescription of 
the law of Moses and of the traditions of the 
elders—having undergone all the required ablu- 
tions, with phylacteries fastened in the most ap- 
proved fashion, his face shining with sanctimonious 
self-satisfaction, or, on fast days, carefully left un- 
washed and untrimmed, that it might be seen 
he had been fasting, pompously and decorously 


428 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


approaching the place of prayer, and with measured 
phrase, disturbed by no agitating emotion, utter- 
ing his unwitting self-condemnation. The prayer 
our Lord puts into his lips looks at first sight 
like a caricature, and we find it difficult to believe 
that any man, however dyed with Pharisaism, 
could be so absolutely self-complacent in his su- 
periority as this prayer indicates. But not only 
are there actual prayers on record which rival this 
in blind self-adulation, but it is certainly not an 
overdrawn picture of the Pharisaic mind. 

In contrast to the superficial religion of forms, 
our Lord sets true heart-religion. Over against 
the Pharisee, satisfied with himself and despising 
others, stands the publican, so occupied with his 
own sinful state that he cannot think of other 
men. There is no comparison instituted between 
the Pharisee and the impenitent sinner, though 
even such a comparison might not be altogether 
to the advantage of the clean-living Pharisee ; for 
self-satisfaction is a more obstinate bar to pro- 
gress than the vices of men who make no preten- 
sions to virtue. But between the Pharisee and 
the penitent publican the comparison must be 
wholly in favor of the latter. Here is a man who 
unconsciously goes direct to the heart of religion. 
By a simple recognition of his actual condition 
he shoots at a bound far ahead of the Pharisee. 
The very circumstance that his sins are gross and 
undeniable is in his favor. Condemned as he is 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 429 


by the judgment of men, he feels himself to be 
inexcusable ; and aided thus by the conscience of 
others, his own conscience loudly accuses him. 

The true penitent is identified by every mark 
of humble and sincere contrition: he stands afar 
off, his shame will not suffer him to lift up his 
eyes; in his misery he beats his breast ; he can- 
not, so deep in his sense of guilt, even address 
God directly, but merely ejaculates, “God be 
merciful to me a sinner.” It is the picture ofa 
man thoroughly alive to allthe shame and misery 
of sin. His sin is past apology, extenuation, or 
explanation. It isthe grand feature of his life: 
he has nothing else to speak of; it occupies his 
thoughts. He has not the remotest idea that 
anything acceptable to God can be found in him. 
“ A sinner ’—that is the term that describes him. 
Mercy is the only attribute of God he dare appeal 
to. He does not buoy himself up with any re- 
membrance of almsdeeds or prayers in the past, 
nor with any promise of amendment. His isa 
case that it is in vain to disguise; he does not at- 
tempt to give any account of it: he can but utter 
the one cry that is left to the man who knows his 
whole life has been wrong and that no power of 
reparation is now left to him. 

Such a condition is probably not rare. Rare 
it may be in instructed and religious circles, where 
penitence is urged as a duty; but probably not 
rare among those who have not put themselves 


430 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


much in the way of religious instruction and whose 
penitence is the sincere and genuine growth of 
their own experience of the fruits of sin. Life is 
the most effective teacher; and where elaborate 
doctrinal instruction often produces only Phari- 
sees, life produces true penitents. And plainly 
our Lord means to shed a ray of hope into those 
dark regions which lie outside the pale of ecclesi- 
astical teaching ; forthough both men were pray- 
ing in the temple, the impression is left on the 
mind that the publican was asomewhat unfamiliar 
visitant of the place of prayer. The ignorant cry 
of the sinner, almost crushed with despair, has in 
it, our Lord would say, the germ of a new life. 
The moment of heart-broken hopelessness is like 
the sinking in death of the old life, which makes 
way for a new hope in Godand a newlifein Him. 
To be absolutely broken in our own self-confidence 
and stopped in our own way is the turning point 
which brings us to God’s everlasting way. It is 
an experience full of wretchedness, but only bya 
clear recognition of our actual state can amend- 
ment be begun. If we are to find our life in God, 
life in self must be proved futile. If we are to 
use intelligently the helps God affords us, we 
must see our dangers. If salvation from sin isto 
be rational and real, it must meet us where we 
are and be applied to us as we are. We must 
face the actual truth about the relation which our 
life holds to perfect holiness. We must fairly 


_ THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 431 


judge ourselves by a perfect life and own to all 
actual derelictions ofduty. Weare not summon- 
ed to penitence asaseemly and suitable acknowl- 
edgment of God; we are summoned to own and 
face the truth, to touch and take to do with 
reality, to look at life as it really is and ourselves 
as we really are; and if the truth about our own 
life and character does not compel shame and 
humble us before God, we are not asked to force 
a penitence that is not natural and reasonable. 
The circumstance that the humble, broken- 
hearted publican went down to his house justified 
rather than the Pharisee, shows us that there is 
no true religion without a consciousness of sin; 
that the consciousness of God involves a con- 
sciousness of sin, as the strongest light casts the 
darkest shadows. God is so subtly interwoven 
with all things, and especially with all that is 
moral, that we cannot know Him until we know 
human life, and cannot know human life until we 
know Him. The two grandest parts of knowl- 
edge go hand in hand and grow together. And 
you can always tell how much a man knows of 
God by ascertaining how much he knows of his 
own sin. By the knowledge of God he is lifted 
into quite a new point of view. When he knows 
something of the love, patience, and sacrifice of 
God, he finds himself in anew moral world, in the 
presence of principles and purposes infinitely 
exalted above those he has been familiar with, 


432 THE PARABLES OF OUR LORD. 


and applying to all things a scale immeasurably 
higher. When the life of Jesus Christ is taken 
seriously as the one standard or mirror for all 
human life, when it is seen to be the Divine idea for 
us all, we cannot but sink in shame at the contrast 
it presents to our own. 

And to which of us is the prayer of the publi- 
can unsuitable? Which of us has not sinned 
without excuse? Who among us can invite God's 
strict judgment? Would it not be the part of 
candor and honesty to go to Godas frankly and 
humbly as the publican, and supplicate God's 
mercy? Must we not be living an altogether 
delusive life if we are living with sin unconfessed ? 
Is it possible we can be satisfied with our life 
while we have been at no pains to ascertain how 
sin is to be dealt with? And isit possible we can 
leave a sinful past behind us and pass on to the 
future with principles unchanged, with no cer- 
tainty that the future will be better than the past, 
with no real hope or assurance that we are ad- 
vancing towards a sinless and perfect condition ? 

To the real penitent this Parable is meant to 
bring encouragement. It plainly says that God 
will not despise the prayer of the contrite. When 
the heart fails under a sense of sin, when the 
whole of life is filled with darkness, then God is 
near and accepts the penitent. To be hopeless is 
at alltimes mistaken and wrong. To be hopeless 
is to be godless, and no man is godless however he 


THE PHARISEE AND THE PUBLICAN. 433 


may have denied God and forsaken Him. He 
has a God still, a God ready to forgive, delighting 
in mercy ; and if nothing else convinces him of 
God’s nearness, his own sense of sin ought to do 


so, proving, as it does, the supreme importance of 
all moral relations. 


THE END. 














DATE DUE 





DEC 31 Pear 
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3 28 sires DE JEG a 5. 





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